Mincing Words

Love One Another

2012-02-14T15:17:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "Building One Another" by Stanley Ott, February 14, 2012,

February 14, 2012
Vol. 11, No. 5 Love One Another

Dear Friend,
Is not the essence of Valentine’s Day to affirm your love to the people in your life?

When it came to the love of the Thessalonian Christians, the apostle Paul wrote, “Now about your love for one another we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.” I Thess. 4:9* Indeed we have been. Take a moment and read all the ways:

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34
By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. John 13:35
Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another... Romans 13:8
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 1 Peter 1:22
Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love one another… 1 Peter 3:8
This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 1 John 3:11
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. 1 John 3:23
Friends, let us love one another… 1 John 4:7
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 1 John 4:11
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another... 1 John 4:12

It’s difficult to miss the point! May what Paul asks of the Thessalonians be true of us, “And in fact, you do love all of God’s family throughout Macedonia. Yet we urge you, brothers and sisters, to do so more and more.” I Thessalonians 4:10

With joy- E. Stanley Ott
Copyright 2012 E. Stanley Ott
*Scripture from the NIV

Love Your Enemies

2011-12-03T12:48:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "A Victim Treats His Mugger Right" by Michael Garofalo. NPR: Morning Edition. March 28, 2008. http://www.npr.org/2008/03/28/89164759/a-victim-treats-his-mugger-right
KEYWORDS: beatitudes, love,

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

"He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, 'Here you go,'" Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"

Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.

"You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help," Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

"The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi," Diaz says. "The kid was like, 'You know everybody here. Do you own this place?'"

"No, I just eat here a lot," Diaz says he told the teen. "He says, 'But you're even nice to the dishwasher.'"
Diaz replied, "Well, haven't you been taught you should be nice to everybody?"

"Yea, but I didn't think people actually behaved that way," the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. "He just had almost a sad face," Diaz says.

The teen couldn't answer Diaz — or he didn't want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, "Look, I guess you're going to have to pay for this bill 'cause you have my money and I can't pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I'll gladly treat you."
The teen "didn't even think about it" and returned the wallet, Diaz says. "I gave him $20 ... I figure maybe it'll help him. I don't know."

Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen's knife — "and he gave it to me."

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, "You're the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch."

"I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It's as simple as it gets in this complicated world."

Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo.

Do I Get Free Wi-Fi?

2011-11-30T04:53:00.000-08:00

Source: "Ask Bigger Questions" by Keith Anderson. http://www.churchleadership.com/leadingideas/leaddocs/2011/111130_article2.html

In June 2011, Steve Jobs made a twenty-minute presentation to the Cupertino City Council to introduce Apple’s plans for a new corporate headquarters, affectionately known as “the mothership.” This presentation caught my attention because it happened on the heels of Jobs’s big introduction of OSX Lion, iOS5, and iCloud at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference. I laughed that even Steve Jobs had to deal with local politics, and I wondered how he would perform on someone else’s much smaller stage. So I watched.

He presented the new building to the City Council with his trademark charm. He talked about the architectural significance of the building, how it would create significantly more green space, the value of staying in his hometown of Cupertino and the accompanying economic benefits. Following his presentation, one of the city council members, inquiring about the benefit to the residents, asked Jobs — the Steve Jobs, the Edison of our time, the CEO of Apple, the second largest company in the world — “Do we get free Wi-Fi?”
Jobs responded by reiterating that Apple is the largest taxpayer in Cupertino, that it attracts bright and fairly affluent people (who also pay taxes), and that they are vastly increasing the green space. He concluded, “I think we bring a lot more than free Wi-Fi.” No kidding.

The memory of this presentation and exchange has remained with me, particularly since Jobs’s death, because of the valuable lesson I took from it. Most of the time our questions are too small.

Pull Yourself Toward God

2011-11-18T12:55:00.000-08:00

Source: "Religion Doesn't Make People Immoral, Being Human Does, " an interview with Rabbi David Wolpe on the Slate website.

"Leona Medina, a [17^th-century] rabbi, once said very beautifully, if you were standing on the shore of a lake watching a guy pull his boat to the shore, and you were confused about mechanics and motion, you might think that he was pulling the shore to the boat. People make the same mistake when they pray. Whatever they want, they're going to move God to it. But real prayer is when you pull yourself towards God."

You Cannot...

2011-11-06T16:36:00.000-08:00

Source: "American Charter" by Rev. William John Henry Boetcker; 1916 (often wrongly attributed to Abraham Lincoln). http://www.snopes.com/quotes/lincoln/prosperity.asp

* You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
* You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
* You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
* You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
* You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
* You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
* You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
* You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
* You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative
and independence.
* You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and
should do for themselves.

We Are Not Alone

2011-10-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

SOURCE: "We Are Not Alone," Su Voz; Tuesday, October 18, 2011

KEYWORDS: loneliness,

JOHN 16: 25-36*
“You will desert me; however, I am not alone, because the Father is with me.”

Loneliness is the most desolate word in the Spanish language. It has no regard for a person’s age, race, wealth, or level of intelligence. Albert Einstein said, “How strange to be a world-renowned figure and yet to suffer from such loneliness.”

God created us to experience intimacy and companionship with others. He declared that it was not good for the man to be alone. Solitude is the reason that many people end up feeling empty inside.

Jesus also felt lonely and must have felt it quite deeply when His disciples abandoned him. Nevertheless, the presence of the Father was made clear when He said, “I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” This closeness with the Lord can be had by all who place their trust in Him and in His Word.

We can forget our feelings of loneliness by opening ourselves up to others; but even more importantly, we must open ourselves up to the Lord. He is always with us and wants us to have communion with Him at all times.

PRAYER: Lord, grant that your company might erase all feelings of loneliness in my life. Amen.

Things I Knew

2011-09-24T12:56:00.000-07:00

SOURCE: http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/276912/911-paul-krugman-and-15-years-worth-harsh-surprises

Jim Geraghty writes a blog over at National Review Online. I'm not endorsing everything he has said, but I found his litany relaying the surprises of the past 15 years moving.

Think back to about fourteen or fifteen years ago, and everything you thought you knew at that moment.

You knew no president would be so reckless that he would get caught having sex with an intern in the Oval Office.

You may have worried about your kid’s safety at school, but you knew two alienated teenagers couldn’t turn their rage into a massacre.

You “knew” that the winner of the presidential election was the candidate who got the most votes.

You knew absentee ballots get counted, whether or not the race was close or not. You knew a vote was a vote, and “dimpled chad” was the kid in your child’s kindergarten class photo.

When you looked out at the New York City skyline, you knew it would look the same the next day.

If you knew where Afghanistan was, you knew those loons beating women and blowing up Buddhas were bad news, but they were on the other side of the world and you had a lot more closer to home to worry about.

You knew the only thing being sent through the mail that could kill you came from the Unabomber. You knew that if deadly poison ever came through the mail, it wouldn’t be coming from a government scientist.

You knew a giant company like Enron with a big corporate headquarters and commercials couldn’t be a big scam. After all, serious professional economists like Paul Krugman worked for them as consultants.

You knew that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You knew that when the United States sent its troops into harm’s way, it knew the mission and how it would accomplish it.

You knew that American soldiers didn’t humiliate their prisoners for fun, and didn’t take pictures of it.

You knew that you could trust priests.

You knew that you’d never see a breast during the Super Bowl halftime show.

You knew that television news anchors checked out their sources before reporting a huge story right before an election. You knew that if an anchor got it wrong, other news media would jump all over them, and the defining mission of figuring out the truth wouldn’t be left to a bunch of no-names working in their pajamas.

You knew hurricanes could get pretty rough, but you figured every big Gulf Coast city was ready for them.

You knew that governors didn’t sleep with hookers, at least not the ones who started their careers as prosecutors busting prostitution rings.

You knew the value of your house would almost always go up each year, some years a little, some years a lot.

You knew gas prices went up and went down, but that you would probably never pay more than three bucks a gallon.

You knew not to drink the water in Mexico, but that food here in America – tomatoes, jalapenos, peanut butter, ground beef – was always safe.

You knew the Cold War was over, the days of Russian troops marching across borders and occupying parts of other countries were long gone.

You knew the markets could bounce around, but that nobody talked about them collapsing and another Depression descending upon us. Your money was safe in institutions like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, you spent your paycheck on gadgets at Circuit City and the Sharper Image, furniture from Bombay Company, books from Borders and toys from KB Toys, and the Big Three in Detroit would always keep making cars. The last thing you would ever see would be the big guys on Wall Street going to Washington and begging the federal government for cash.

You knew that recessions usually ended within a year; they didn’t drag on, with high unemployment, year after year after year…

You figured you could pick up your copy of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Rocky Mountain News, or the Christian Science Monitor every day until you died and never see those events in the headlines. It was about as likely as a federally-funded community group offering assistance to child prostitution rings.

The past fifteen years have been one rude awakening after another, where one unspoken assumption after another kept getting smacked around by a bipolar furious reality.

I also appreciate one of the comments listed there as well.

Couldn't you make a list like that for any 15 year period?
Think 1930-1945 for starters....
15 years ago I knew that no nation could kill millions of people in gas chambers...

How to Manage Ideas

2011-09-24T12:46:00.000-07:00

SOURCE: "Leadership Limerick: How to Manage Ideas" by Jeffrey Cufaude
http://www.ideaarchitects.org/2011/09/leadership-limerick-how-do-you-manage.html?m=1

"Great ideas are easily lost,
And bad ones often aren't tossed.
You need a system to rate,
and determine the right fate,
Or else you'll pay a great cost."

What It's Like to Be in Love

2011-09-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

SOURCE: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/277396/what-it-s-be-love-michael-potemra
KEYWORDS: love, Chesterton, discipleship,

On the subway, I was reading one of G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown stories, “The Flying Stars,” and ran across one of those passages that make Chesterton worth the attention even of those who do not share his key theological or political views. The setting is an impromptu theatrical at a Boxing Day house party, and the boyfriend of the family’s daughter has taken charge of the entertainment:

He was supposed to be the clown, but he was really almost everything else, the author (so far as there was an author), the prompter, the scene-painter, the scene-shifter, and, above all, the orchestra. . . . Commonly he was a clever man, and he was inspired tonight with a wild omniscience, a folly wiser than the world, that which comes to a young man who has seen for an instant a particular expression on a particular face.

Honestly, this passage brought tears to my eyes, even though I had read the story more than once before — simply because it made real, emotionally, the way being in love transforms not only one’s view of the love-object, but also of oneself and of the whole world. To the person in love, the whole world seems to come into a brighter and clearer focus, and inspires a sense of omni-competence: Anything I didn’t do before, out of laziness or lack of motivation, I am now able to do, and want to do.

Chesterton does not theologize this passage, but I can’t help myself. St. John tells us that “God is love” — and is there not, in His attitude toward His creatures, the same sort of amour fou that the young man is possessed by in the story? And isn’t mysticism nothing but a glimpse, an inkling, a reflection, of precisely that sort of love? The perspective love brings is more powerful than that of pure reason. This is why many people over the past couple of centuries have objected to the word “Logos” to characterize God, and sought to de-Hellenize theology — purify it of Greek philosophical concepts — to get rid of the word. They intuit, correctly, that God is not “Word” in the sense of Professor Dryasdust and the cold syllogisms of purely human reason; they get the sense, in reading the works of too many theologians, that the latter have set many all-too-human limits on God. (This can be expressed as: “God is capable of more things than the volumes of Aquinas, Calvin, Barth, and the canon lawyers of various denominations might be willing to permit Him.” But who could put it better than Shakespeare: “There are more things in heaven and earth . . . than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”)

But “Logos” is quite appropriate if it’s understood in a broader way, to mean a reason deeper than ours, a reason not limited to the rules elaborated by our thinkers — a reason like that of the man in the story, with his “folly wiser than the world.” What looks like “folly to the Greeks,” a stumbling block to human reason, is, many of us believe, the Deepest Reason of all.

The View From Above

2011-07-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

Source: "Looking Down from the Sky"; Engines of our Ingenuity, No. 1729. http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1729.htm
Keyword: aloof, abstraction, reductionism

When human flight came to be, suddenly there was a new way of looking at the world. Artists and then cameras took birds-eye views of the landscape.

Two of the many people who talked about the new aerial perspective were Charles Lindbergh and the radical architect Le Corbusier. For Le Corbusier, the view from above made the earth below into an abstraction. In 1935, he wrote.
The bird's eye view ... now sees in substance what the mind formerly could only subjectively conceive.
He particularly disliked what he saw of cities from above. He went on to make this chilling remark:
Cities must be extricated from their misery, come what may. Whole quarters of them must be destroyed and new cities built.
Then we see the sterile geometrical city layouts he proposed as replacements. Just as Mussolini and Hitler took power, Le Corbusier was gravitating into a like-minded form of technocratic fascism.
The young Lindbergh was also accused of pro-fascist leanings. However, at the end of long and complex life, he was still struggling to get it right. In his last book, published after he died, he recalls visiting an island off the Brittany coast, in 1938. First, he seems to echo Le Corbusier. He says:
... when I was flying from America to Europe [I] looked down on the Atlantic and wondered what shapes and contours were masked by the sameness of its surface. ... the sea maintained its dignified aloofness.
But now, walking the beach below, his tone changes:
At the edge of [the sea], each fastly ebbing tide opened the ocean's threshold, let you step into a strange and foreign realm. Fish, camouflaged by weeds, hung motionless in crystal pools. Green, protoplasmic masses lay inertly on the stones. A tentacle from a small squid flashed out.
Lindbergh had been a barnstormer, a hero, an inventor, and a WW-II combat pilot. He'd had seen it all from above. An older Lindbergh understands how that elevated perspective can deceive any of us.
We engineers live by abstracting reality into manageable parcels. But we know nothing if we disconnect from the hard earth of messy detail. The "dignified aloofness" of the long view is lovely, but only because it is constructed from the rich organic clutter contained within it.

Abstraction and reductionism often leaves out life. It is important to live within the messiness of real life. The faith calls us not simply to the mountaintop but also to the life below.

"I am looking forward to it."

2011-05-30T10:17:00.000-07:00

Quote: Billy Graham, 1983

“The moment you read in the paper that Billy Graham is dead, you will know that he is more alive than he has ever been; that he is in paradise. And I am looking forward to it.”

Setting the World on Fire

2011-05-03T11:16:00.000-07:00

SOURCE: "Fire" by Stanley Ott. Building One Another, Vol 10, No 13. http://vitalchurchesinstitute.com/enews_posts/view/663
KEYWORDS:

Dear Friend,

During the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, the Bishop of London quoted Catherine of Siena as saying, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

It is a wonderful word for not only the royal couple, but for every one of us.

God has made you as the unique and one and only you. At the same time our Lord never intended you to function solely in your own power. Setting the world on fire will only happen as we rely on the God who made us and who loves us to provide the flame!

As John the Baptist said, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” Luke 3:16*

So we know God intends you and me to be God’s vessels, open to and filled with God’s Spirit. Sometimes the vessels of our lives get pretty messed up. We are fragile and easily damaged.

Yet in the midst of the reality of our frailty is this huge word, “But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7

A clay and fragile jar you may be, but you are the Lord’s jar, made to be God’s vessel. As the great words of the song “Spirit of the Living God,” say, “Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me.”

Crucifix Requires No Glove

2011-04-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

QUOTABLE:

The crucifix requires no glove.

--Emily Dickinson

(A grieving Emily Dickinson, near the end of her own life, in a five-word letter to a friend about the death of a mutual friend they had lost in his prime of life.)

Eating - Heaven and Hell

2011-04-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

QUOTABLE:

"The slogan of Hell: Eat or be eaten. The slogan of Heaven: Eat and be eaten."
-- W.H. Auden (A Certain World: A Commonplace Book)

The Windows by George Herber

2011-04-08T04:35:00.000-07:00

SOURCE: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/181054
KEYWORDS: preaching, scripture, bible, discipleship, ministry

The Windows

By George Herbert (1593–1633)

Lord, how can man preach thy eternal word?
    He is a brittle crazy glass;
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
    This glorious and transcendent place,
    To be a window, through thy grace.

But when thou dost anneal in glass thy story,
    Making thy life to shine within
The holy preachers, then the light and glory
    More reverend grows, and more doth win;
    Which else shows waterish, bleak, and thin.

Doctrine and life, colors and light, in one
    When they combine and mingle, bring
A strong regard and awe; but speech alone
    Doth vanish like a flaring thing,
    And in the ear, not conscience, ring.

God Isn't Big Enough

2011-03-24T12:27:00.000-07:00

SOURCE: "God isn't Big Enough for Some People" by Umberto Eco. http://www.umbertoeco.com/en/about-god-and-dan-brown.html
KEYWORDS:

"Human beings are religious animals. It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion. You can see this in the positivist scientists of the 19th century."

...

"It is the role of religion to provide that justification. Religions are systems of belief that enable human beings to justify their existence and which reconcile us to death. We in Europe have faced a fading of organised religion in recent years. Faith in the Christian churches has been declining.

The ideologies such as communism that promised to supplant religion have failed in spectacular and very public fashion. So we're all still looking for something that will reconcile each of us to the inevitability of our own death.

G K Chesterton is often credited with observing: "When a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn't believe in nothing. He believes in anything." Whoever said it - he was right. We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.

The "death of God", or at least the dying of the Christian God, has been accompanied by the birth of a plethora of new idols. They have multiplied like bacteria on the corpse of the Christian Church -- from strange pagan cults and sects to the silly, sub-Christian superstitions of The Da Vinci Code"

...

"The pianist Arthur Rubinstein was once asked if he believed in God. He said: "No. I don't believe in God. I believe in something greater." Our culture suffers from the same inflationary tendency. The existing religions just aren't big enough: we demand something more from God than the existing depictions in the Christian faith can provide. So we revert to the occult. The so-called occult sciences do not ever reveal any genuine secret: they only promise that there is something secret that explains and justifies everything. The great advantage of this is that it allows each person to fill up the empty secret "container" with his or her own fears and hopes"

Self-righteousness of Political Violence

2011-01-15T17:17:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "An ex-Weather Underground Radical on the Tucson Shootings and Political Violence" by Mark Rudd. Washington Post. January 16, 2011.
KEYWORD: Kingdom of Man, self-righteousness,

My willingness to endorse and engage in violence had something to do with an exaggerated sense of my own importance. I wanted to prove myself as a man - a motive exploited by all armies and terrorist groups. I wanted to be a true revolutionary like my guerrilla hero, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. I wanted the chant we used at demonstrations defending the Black Panthers to be more than just words: "The revolution has come/Time to pick up the gun!"

...Violent actors in this country - whether James Earl Ray, Timothy McVeigh or Scott Roeder, who in 2009 killed a Kansas abortion provider - are always armed not just with weapons, but with the conviction that their grievances demand satisfaction and their violence is righteous.

Wendy's Founder's Ingredients for Success

2011-01-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "What Makes for Success" by Dave Thomas, Founder of Wendy's in Impiris, Vol 25, No 7. July 1996.
KEYWORDS:

Dave Thomas' ingredients for success are divided into four basic groups:

Inward - these have to do with getting your own act together successfully.

Honesty - "It means stepping out and telling the whole truth. Honesty means being sincere."
Faith - "Live your faith. Don't wear it on your sleeve; roll up both sleeves and do something about it."
Discipline - "Routine lies at the heart of discipline. Routine is what keeps us focused on the main things in life...Discipline means keeping things and people in their proper places."

Outward - these are all about treating people right.

Caring - "Caring is feeling what another person feels. Some people call it 'empathy'. Genuinely caring about people usually leads to success."
Teamwork - "Teamwork is the starting point for treating people right. Most people think that teamwork is only important when competing against other teams. But competition is only part of the picture. In most things we do in life, people have to work with rather than against each other to get something done. Win-win situations and partnerships are the most important results of teamwork. The best teams in the world are the ones that help people become better and achieve more than they ever thought they could on their own."

Upward - these are skills you need to know if you want to go beyond just doing an okay job and truly excel.

Motivation - "Know what motivates you, and prove to yourself that this motivation is honest and worthwhile. But don't let too many different things motivate you, or you'll be tangled up in a maze of all kinds of conflicts. Stay focused."
Creativity - "Creativity means change, but if you don't use common sense when you change things around, you are likely to end up farther behind than when you started. Not everyone can be creative. Accept it as a fact of life that if you aren't creative yourself your challenge is to learn how to work with people who are...What make people creative? Sometimes, it's having your life shaken up."
Leadership - "What knocks off more leaders than anything else is failing to practice what they preach. Of all the things leaders are supposed to do, nothing is more important than setting a good example."

Onward - these are attitudes you need to have in order to put yourself second and other people first.

Responsibility - "Mature leadership means realizing that no single person can be responsible for everything. You can't be successful if you are stumbling around trying to carry the whole world on your shoulders. Responsible people refuse to take shortcuts, even though they are almost always available. They make sure that others with duties act responsibly, too. And they use whatever recognition or honor they may have earned not to further their own ends but on behalf of good causes. Instead of stealing the limelight, they allow it to shine on a good cause."
Courage - "We tend to make courage too dramatic. Courage is often doing something simple, unpleasant, or boring again and again until we get it down pat."
Generosity -"You have to give of yourself, not just of your wallet."

Blessed to be a Blessing

2011-01-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "Ted Williams: My Time With the Homeless Man With the Golden Voice" by Mansfield Frazier. Daily Beast, January 7, 2011.
KEYWORDS: redemption, blessed, blessing, calling, freedom

I met Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice who became a viral sensation, in a high-class dope den just before his descent into the world of addiction...

I was already deeply embedded in the "street life" at the time, and his presence at the after-hours joint we met at portended bad things to come for him. This was not his environs. The place was a high-class dope den and crack was in its heyday. Few people had seriously attempted to stop abusing it at this point, so even fewer were aware of its ironclad addictive powers—how hard it was for some to quit...

However, for this tale to have a happy ending Williams has to stay straight once he's got two dollars above bus fare jingling in his jeans pockets—no mean feat once someone has been bitten as hard as he. What's the old joke, "I can quit [insert whatever your drug of choice in here] anytime I want. I've done it dozens of times." I certainly don't wish the brother ill, but (for his own good) he bears close watching for awhile. Believe me, nothing on God's green earth is as empty as a junkie's promise...

[One lawyer that I knew] had been clean for close to a decade, living in an upscale community, with a beautiful wife and two adopted kids. "One day I was driving home after leaving court and the car just started driving itself," he now laughs. "It went straight to the dope house." Within six months he was flat broke and on the verge of being disbarred. After two years he again has it back together, but he now knows where he made his mistake.

"I didn't give anything back when I got my own life together … I didn't go into the jails, into prisons and halfway houses and try to take someone under my wing. I didn't join Narcotics Anonymous, I didn't try to mentor anyone."

...He might not know this yet—but I, along with many others who have been lost souls do know it—his success ultimately depends on his willingness to give something back; to use this second chance to not only get his own life together, but to unselfishly reach back and help others, to try to assist them in climbing out of their lives despondency, degradation, and despair.

This is what we—ex-junkies, whoremongers, lawbreakers and hopeless reprobates—do … this is how we stay straight...

Christianity with a Criminal Mindset

2010-12-30T09:34:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "My Criminal Mindset" by Julie Clawson. http://www.christiancentury.org/blogs/archive/2010-12/my-criminal-mindset
KEYWORDS:

A friend at church asked me to help with her son's project for a college psychology class. He was studying the criminal mindset of women inmates and needed a control group to compare them with. So his mom handed out the survey to adult women at our church.

I answered the questions as honestly as I could. Yes, I believe there are systemic issues that keep people in poverty. Yes, I believe people of color are sometimes treated unfairly by our judicial system.

A few weeks later my friend mentioned that her son was surprised by the results from our control group: we scored extremely high on having a criminal mindset. Now, I don't know much about the methodology. The test is apparently a standard survey developed and approved by boards to judge "criminal thinking." But I was offended by the results.

I tried to answer the questions from a Christian perspective. I care about things like liberation of the oppressed, fairness for the poor and acceptance of the ethnic other. I try to be educated about places where injustice is present so that I can work for justice, encompassing righteousness, mercy and reconciliation.
But by following our church's biblical emphasis on breaking the chains of injustice, we church ladies were pegged as thinking like criminals.

It's unsettling until I remember that Jesus was arrested, tried and executed by a society that saw his message of economic reversal and love for the poor and the oppressed as criminal too. Then I realize how countercultural Christianity really is.

Love Came Down at Christmas

2010-12-25T17:39:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: posted on Diana Butler Bass on her Facebook page.
KEYWORDS:

Christmas poem, Christina Rossetti c.1865

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, Love Divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
...Star and Angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love Incarnate, Love Divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

The Glory

2010-12-25T17:19:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Posted by Diana Butler Bass on her Facebook page.
KEYWORDS: Christmas, incarnation,

The Glory
by Madeleine L’Engle

Without any rhyme
without any reason
...my heart lifts to light
in this bleak season

Believer and wanderer
caught by salvation
stumbler and blunderer
into Creation

In this cold blight
where marrow is frozen
it is God’s time
my heart has chosen

In paradox and story
parable and laughter
find I the glory
here in hereafter

Is There a Santa Claus

2010-12-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: floating around the internet.

KEYWORDS: generosity, giving, charity, gift

I remember my first Christmas adventure with Grandma. I was just a kid. I remember tearing across town on my bike to visit her.

On the way, my big sister dropped the bomb: "There is no Santa Claus," she jeered. "Even dummies know that!"

My Grandma was not the gushy kind, never had been I fled to her that day because I knew she would be straight with me. I knew Grandma always told the truth, and I knew that the truth always went down a whole lot easier when swallowed with one of her "world-famous" cinnamon buns. I knew they were world-famous, because Grandma said so. It had to be true. Grandma was home, and the buns were still warm. Between bites, I told her everything. She was ready for me.

"No Santa Claus?" she snorted. "Ridiculous! Don't you believe it! That rumor has been going around for years, and it makes me mad, plain mad!!"

Now, put on your coat, and let's go." "Go? Go where Grandma?", I asked. I hadn't even finished my second world-famous cinnamon bun.

"Where" turned out to be Kerby's General Store, the one store in town that had a little bit of just about everything.

As we walked through its doors, Grandma handed me ten dollars. That was a bundle in those days.
"Take this money," she said, "and buy something for someone who needs it. I'll wait for you in the car."

Then she turned and walked out of Kerby's.

I was only eight years old. I'd often gone shopping with my mother, but never had I shopped for anything all by myself.

The store seemed big and crowded, full of people scrambling to finish their Christmas shopping.

For a few moments I just stood there, confused, clutching that ten-dollar bill, wondering what to buy, and who on earth to buy it for.

I thought of everybody I knew: my family, my friends, my neighbors, the kids at school, the people who went to my church.

I was just about thought out, when I suddenly thought of Bobby Decker.

He was a kid with bad breath and messy hair, and he sat right behind me in Mrs. Pollock's grade-two class.

Bobby Decker didn't have a coat. I knew that because he never went out to recess during the winter.

His mother always wrote a note telling the teacher that he had a cough, but all we kids knew that Bobby Decker didn't have a cough; he didn't have a good coat.

I fingered the ten-dollar bill with growing excitement. I would buy Bobby Decker a coat! I settled on a red corduroy one that had a hood to it. It looked real warm, and he would like that.

"Is this a Christmas present for someone?" the lady behind the counter asked kindly, as I laid my ten dollars down.

"Yes ma'am," I replied shyly. "It's for Bobby."

The nice lady smiled at me, as I told her about how Bobby really needed a good winter coat.

I didn't get any change, but she put the coat in a bag, smiled again, and wished me a Merry Christmas.

That evening, Grandma helped me wrap the coat in Christmas paper and ribbons and wrote, "To Bobby, From Santa Claus" on it. Then she tucked the tag from the coat in her Bible.

Grandma said that Santa always insisted on secrecy. Then she drove me over to Bobby Decker's house, explaining as we went that I was now and forever officially, one of Santa's helpers.

Grandma parked down the street from Bobby's house, and she and I crept noiselessly and hid in the bushes by his front walk.

Then Grandma gave me a nudge. "All right, Santa Claus," she whispered, "get going."

I took a deep breath, dashed for his front door, threw the present down on his step, pounded his door and flew back to the safety of the bushes and Grandma.

Together we waited breathlessly in the darkness for the front door to open. Finally it did, and there stood Bobby.

Fifty years haven't dimmed the thrill of those moments spent shivering, beside my Grandma, in Bobby Decker's bushes.

That night, I realized that those awful rumors about Santa Claus were just what Grandma said they were: ridiculous.

Santa was alive and well, and we were on his team. I still have the Bible, with the coat tag tucked inside: $19.95.

May you always have LOVE to share, HEALTH to spare and FRIENDS that care... And may you always believe in the magic of Santa Claus!

The Great O's

2010-12-24T08:00:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: ...shared by a friend.
KEYWORDS: Christmas, advent

The Great O's
O Wisdom, which earnest out of the mouth of the Most High, and reachest
from end to another, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and
teach us the way of prudence.

O Adonai, the leader of the house of Israel, who appearedst in the bush
to Moses in a flame of fire, and gavest him the law in Sinai: Come and
deliver us with an outstretched arm.

O Root of Jesse, which standest for an ensign of the people, at whom
kings shall shut their mouths, and to whom the Gentiles shall seek: Come
and deliver us, and tarry not,

O Key of David, and Sceptre of the house of Israel; that openest, and no
man shutteth, and shuttest, and no man openeth: Come and bring the
prisoner out of the prison-house, and him that sitteth in darkness, and the
shadow of death.

O Dayspring, Brightness of Light everlasting, and Sun of Righteousness:
Come and enlighten him that sitteth in darkness, and the shadow of
death.

O King of the nations, and their Desire, the Cornerstone, who makest
both ·one: Come and save mankind, whom thou formedst of clay.

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations, and
their Salvation: Come and save us, O Lord our God.

O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any
like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at
me? The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery.

Idiots and Church Membership

2010-12-21T14:54:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: “20 Centuries in 20 Minutes” in The Word Today by Dr. James C. Denison, January 14, 2005.
KEYWORDS: church membership, identity

A Baptist pastor was inviting people in his neighborhood to visit his church. An elderly lady said, "No thank you, young man, I'm a Methodist." "If you don't mind telling me," he asked, "why are you a Methodist?" "Well," she replied, "you see, my parents were Methodist, my grandparents were Methodist, and my great-grandparents were Methodist." The frustrated young pastor responded, "That's no reason, just because all your relatives are Methodists. What would you do if all your relatives were idiots?" "In that case," she smiled, "I'd probably be a member of your church."

Dr. James C. Denison
Senior Pastor, Park Cities Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas

Thanks!

2010-12-21T14:51:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: “The B-Team Report” by Dr. Isaac Butterworth. Newsletter of First Presbyterian Church, Wichita Falls, Texas. November 2004.
KEYWORDS: thanks, thanksgiving, words

Rudyard Kipling, as you know, was the author of “Jungle Book” and “Kim” and such poems as “If.” Unlike many great writers, Kipling had opportunity to enjoy his success while he lived. He also made a great deal of money at his trade.

On one occasion, a reporter came up to him and said, “Mr. Kipling, someone has calculated that the money you make from your writings averages more than a hundred dollars a word.”

Rudyard Kipling raised his eyebrows and said, “Really, I certainly wasn’t aware of that.”

The reporter reached into his pocket pulled out a one hundred dollar bill, and gave it to Kipling. In a noticeably cynical tone, he then went on to say, “Here’s a hundred dollar bill, Mr. Kipling. Now, you give me one of your hundred dollar words.”

Kipling looked at the hundred dollar bill for a moment, took it and folded it, put it in his pocket, and said, “Thanks.”

Kipling was right--wouldn’t you say? The word thanks is certainly a hundred dollar word. It may even be a million dollar word. It is certainly a word that is too seldom heard, too rarely spoken, and very often forgotten.

The Perfect Pastor

2010-12-21T14:48:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Quoted in “The Family Visitor,” Newsletter of the Central Christian Church of Vernon, TX. October 2004
KEYWORDS: pastor, unrealistic expectations, pleasing others

At last we have developed a model for a perfect pastor that will suit everyone! He’s guaranteed to please any church that calls him. He preaches exactly fourteen minutes. He condemns sin, but never hurts anyone’s feelings.

He works from 9:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night, in every type of work--from preaching to custodial services. His salary is $60 a week. He wears good clothes, buys good books, has a nice family, drives a nice car, and gives $30 a week to the church.

This perfect pastor is thirty years old, but has been preaching for 35 years. He is tall, short, thin, heavy-set, and very handsome. His hair is parted in the middle, with the left side dark and straight and the right side light and wavy. He has a burning desire to work with young people, and spends all his time with older folks.

He smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a great sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. Although he makes ten calls a day on church members, ten on the unchurched, and five on those in the hospital, he is always available for telephone calls in the office.

--Author Unknown

Nibbled by Ducks

2010-12-21T14:46:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: “Nibbled by Ducks” by Mary Lou Redding from the Upper Room
KEYWORDS: prayer, discipline

Life can sometimes seem like a process of being nibbled to death by ducks. Daily events nip at our heels, distracting us so that we forget to stay connected to God. But there is something we can do. We can train ourselves to see daily tasks, even annoyances and challenges as a call to practice what is often called “mindfulness” -- continual attentiveness to God.

Through the ages, believers have adopted various prayer disciplines to help them in this practice. One of these is “praying the hours” -- stopping at the turning of each hour to reestablish a conscious link with God. Another classic example is Brother Lawrence wrote of feeling God’s closeness as intensely while working in the kitchen as while praying in the chapel. He meditated on God’s words and works whenever his hands were busy. Others turn their mind and spirit to God by praying the Jesus Prayer or another breath prayer or by reciting often a beloved and personally meaningful scripture.

Any of these practices can be adapted to our lives. Thought we may not have a clock chiming each hour, most of us have actions that we repeat several times each day. Each repetition of a familiar task can become a personal “call to prayer.” Those who work at a computer can set the machine to beep or chime on each hour. Those who use the telephone often can use each ring or each occasion of reaching for the receiver to pray, “O God, speak to me and through me” or some similar prayer. Those who are dealing with a behavior that they feel God wants them to change--perhaps worry or impatience--may use each instance of the behavior not as a failure but as an opportunity to turn once again to God. When we are doing tasks to benefit others, we can pray for the recipients or in gratitude for meaningful work. The point is to use the occurrences of each day as reminders to consciously renew our communion with God

Embracing the Pain

2010-12-21T14:44:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: from a post on National Review’s Corner; June 18, 2004
KEYWORDS:

A MOTHER'S BRAVERY, AN EXAMPLE FOR A COUNTRY
This comes from Karl Zinsmeister's hot-off-the-presses book, "Dawn Over Baghdad: How the U.S. Military is Using Bullets and Ballots to Remake Iraq"

“There are times when the best response, perhaps the only response, to the hard blows of existence is to embrace each lump as a badge honoring the determined striving that produced it. In 1918, Teddy Roosevelt’s son Quentin (who had left Harvard during his sophomore year to serve in World War I) was shot out of the sky in one of aerial warfare’s early dogfights. German propagandists took photos of his maimed body amidst his plane’s wreckage and, hoping to dampen American morale, sent one to Mrs. Roosevelt. Rather than let herself be cowed, however, she insisted that the picture be framed and displayed over a mantelpiece, a symbol of her family’s sturdiness and their pride in sacrifice for a high cause.

As I traveled across Iraq with our soldiers, I thought of this incident. What Edith Roosevelt did was both a very hard and a very soft thing. She pushed aside her own grief and expressed admiration and undying love for her son by celebrating his bravery--and by refusing to abandon his fight.”

God Uses Others

2010-12-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Newsletter, First Presbyterian Church of Colorado City, Tx. April 2004
KEYWORDS:

Rev. Chuck Fisher near death wrote this article for his church’s newsletter.

Sleep stood evasively at a distance on Monday night and early Tuesday morning. All kinds of thoughts and feelings passed through my mind in the midst of the insomnia…

So, I thought maybe God is trying to tell me something--something very special that I have not yet heard. Hoping that to be the case, I got up and began to sit and ponder. In the early morning quietness, I pleaded for God to speak.

As I listened carefully, I reflected over all the wonderful cards and notes expressing both great concern and appreciation for the things I have done. I am truly overwhelmed by the way folks have been touched by words and my work in the world. I realize now that some of what I consider the most insignificant gestures and the simplest things have touched people in very meaningful ways. I know that I am certainly far from perfect. There is so much more I could have done, should have done, to make this world a kinder, gentler place. But, even my feeble efforts have helped others in a variety of ways--as I hear daily in cards and letters.

Now, I hope this doesn’t sound like I’m bragging. For, I am not. I just find it strange and amazing that through doing plain old ordinary stuff--being present when people were hurting, hanging out in waiting rooms, visiting rehab centers and hospitals, sharing doubts and questions, searching for good when evil seems so pressing--wonderful things have happened.

I stand dumb struck to hear and feel how God has used this sinful individual to bring good news to others. We see it time and time again in Scripture: King David, the adulterous murderer; Amos, the simple fig picker from Tekoa; Isaiah, the man of unclean lips; the impetuous Simon Peter who denied Christ three times in one night; and the Apostle Paul, persecutor of the Church. All became servants of the one true God. And even Chuck Fisher with all his baggage of years of hard living, God has used for good service.

Jimmy Steward & "It's a Wonderful Life"

2010-12-21T14:37:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Guideposts Magazine. Published December 1987. www.guideposts.org
KEYWORDS: Christmas, hopelessness, prayer

In one scene, for example, George Bailey is faced with unjust criminal charges and, not knowing were to turn, ends up in a little roadside restaurant. He is unaware that most of the people in town are arduously praying for him. In this agony I raised my eyes and, following the script, pled, “God…God…Dear Father in heaven, I’m not a praying man, but if You’re up there and You can hear me, show me the way. I’m at the end of my rope. Show me the way, God…”

As I said those words, I felt the loneliness, the hopelessness of people who had nowhere to turn, and my eyes filled with tears. I broke down sobbing. This was not planned at all, but the power of that prayer, the realization that our Father in heaven is there to help the hopeless, had reduced me to tears.

Frank, who loved spontaneity in his films, was ecstatic. He wanted a close-up of me saying that prayer, but was sensitive enough to know that my breaking down was real and that repeating it in another take was unlikely. But Frank got his close-up anyway.

The following week he worked long hours in the film laboratory, again and again enlarging the frames of that scene so that eventually it would appear as a close-up on the screen. I believe nothing like this had ever been done before. It involved thousands of individual enlargements with extra time and money. But he felt it was worth it.

Jimmy Stewart and Church

2010-12-21T14:33:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Guideposts Magazine. Published December 1987. www.guideposts.org
KEYWORDS: church, Hollywood, father

I remembered how, after I got started in pictures, Dad, who’d come to California for a visit, asked, “Where do you go to church around here?”

“Well,” I stammered, “I haven’t been going…There’s none around here.”

Dad disappeared and came back with four men. “You must not have looked very hard, Jim,” he said, “because there’s a Presbyterian church just three blocks from here, and these are the elders. They’re building a new building now, and I told them you were a movie star and you would help them.” And so Brentwood Presbyterian was the first church I belonged to out here. Later that church was the one in which Gloria and I were married. A few years after that it was the same church I’d slip into during the day when Gloria was near death after our twin girls were born. Then, after we moved, we attended Beverly Hills Presbyterian, a church we could walk to.

NDA BOT: People of the House

2010-12-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Brian, student at PTS, gave a portion of this speech at the dedication of a new dorm at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 2003.
KEYWORDS: household, family, church

Anyone who has known me for very long--ten minutes or longer--knows that my conversations always turn to Africa.

I am only a Middler at PTS, no older than most other students, but my five years experience as a Presbyterian missionary in Cameroon, Africa, has given me (if not the wisdom) at least the lengthy stories of one well beyond my years.
…
Most institutions--like PTS and like the mission school I served in Cameroon--have two lives.

There is the life one sees when one visit’s the campus during office hours, the stately buildings, the professional courtesies, the tended lawns.

Then there is the life that goes on during the evenings and weekends, outside the classrooms, among the residents.

We can call the first one the “Administrative Life” of the school, and the second one I can only call the “nda bot.”

“Nda bot” is a term in the Bulu language of Southern Cameroon, and it literally means “housepeople.”

“Nda bot” was the heart of life at my mission school back in Cameroon: it was the teachers and students who lived at the school in their off hours.

Nda bot is the shared life--behind the scenes--of people whom for whatever reason share a common lot in life.
…
But whenever the community had an urgent need or joy, when a neighbor was ill or a child was born, when a relative died, the Nda Bot was always there: singing and praying and serving peanut stew.

Nda Bot meant neighborhood and community in a way that put aside all official rank and privilege

"One Thing

2010-12-21T14:27:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: “The B-Team Report” by Isaac Butterworth. Connections: The Newsletter of First Presbyterian Church, Wichita Falls. April 2004.
KEYWORDS: priority, purpose, focus, movie

"Do you remember that scene in the movie “City Slickers” where Mitch (played by Billy Crystal) and Curly (played by Jack Palance) are riding along on horseback looking for stray cattle? Curly, the crusty old cowboy, asks Mitch, the “city slicker,” “Do you know what the secret to life is?”

Mitch replies, “No, what?”

Curly holds up one finger and says, “This.”

“Your finger?”

“One thing,” Curly replies, “just one thing. You stick to that and everything else don’t mean nothing’.”

Mitch looks back at Curly and says, “That’s great, but what’s the one thing?”

And Curly answers, “That’s what *you* got to figure out.

What's Up With the Ugly Baby?

2010-12-21T14:20:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "What's Up With the Ugly Baby?" by Mark Moring, posted 03/01/04 http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/news/040301-passion.html
KEYWORDS: evil, devil

"Please explain the symbolism in the scene showing Satan holding a bald baby. Thank you."

That's just one of dozens of e-mails we've received in the last few days, asking about a surreal scene in “The Passion of the Christ” where Satan is shown cradling a hideous baby who looks like he's about 40 years old.

The scene occurs during the flogging of Christ. Satan is passing through a crowd of onlookers, cradling an infant in his arms. The baby turns to face the camera, revealing a sinister infant, creeping out audiences everywhere.

When asked why he portrayed Satan-an androgynous, almost beautiful being played by Rosalinda Celentano-the way he did, Gibson replied: "I believe the Devil is real, but I don't believe he shows up too often with horns and smoke and a forked tail. The devil is smarter than that. Evil is alluring, attractive. It looks almost normal, almost good-but not quite.

"That's what I tried to do with the Devil in the film. The actor's face is symmetric, beautiful in a certain sense, but not completely. For example, we shaved her eyebrows. Then we shot her almost in slow motion so you don't see her blink-that's not normal. We dubbed in a man's voice in Gethsemane even though the actor is a woman … That's what evil is about, taking something that's good and twisting it a little bit."

But what about the ugly baby?

"Again," said Gibson, "it's evil distorting what's good. What is more tender and beautiful than a mother and a child? So the Devil takes that and distorts it just a little bit. Instead of a normal mother and child you have an androgynous figure holding a 40-year-old 'baby' with hair on his back. It is weird, it is shocking, it's almost too much-just like turning Jesus over to continue scourging him on his chest is shocking and almost too much, which is the exact moment when this appearance of the Devil and the baby takes place.

Jewish Origins of Superman

2010-12-19T17:34:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "Supermensch!" by Arie Kaplan. Utne Magazine. January-February 2004, pg 93-4.
KEYWORDS: superman, jewish, messiah, liberation, golem

The idea of Superman occurred to a teenager named Jerry Siegel one hot summer night in 1933. He was having trouble falling asleep. While lying in bed, Siegel thought, “If only I could fly…” and began to envision a character who could fly--a character who was stronger, more courageous, more invincible than he could ever be. Excited, Jerry hurried to his desk and wrote out in comic strip form the first Superman story; early the next morning he rushed over to the home of his artist friend Joe Shuster to share his idea. Equally inspired, Joe immediately began to draw a prototype of the character. Thus was a hero born.

Superman actualized the adolescent power fantasies of its creators--two Jewish, Depression-era kids craving a muscle-bound redeemer to liberate them from the social and economic impoverishment of their lives. [Others have seen a parallel between Superman and the Golem--the legendary creature magically conceived by the rabbi of medieval Prague to defend the community from an invasion by its anti-Semitic enemies]

The Superman narrative is also rich in Jewish symbolism. He is a child survivor named Kal-El (in Hebrew, “All that is God”) from the planet of Krypton, whose population, a race of brilliant scientists, is decimated. His parents send him to Earth in a tiny rocket ship, reminiscent of how baby Moses survived Pharaoh’s decree to kill all Jewish newborn sons. In the context of the 1930s, the story also reflects the saga of the Kindertransports--the evacuation to safety of hundreds of Jewish children, without their parents, from Austria, Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia to Great Britain.

Angst-ridden adolescent comic fans, Jewish and not, shared Siegel and Shuster’s feelings of helplessness and yearned for a super-savior, a favor that was not lost on the comic-book publishers, who responded with a succession of new superhero creations, many created by Jews--Bob Kane gave us Batman in 1940, and a year later, Jack Kirby unleashed Captain America

Absurdists and the Kingdom of God

2010-12-19T17:31:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: “Activate Your Creativity!” by Jo del Pesco. Utne Magazine. January-February 2004, pg 36-7
KEYWORDS: kingdom of God, absurd, unexpected

The situationists, an iconoclastic group of French leftist theorists, artists, and pranksters active in the late 1950s and 60s, pioneered a critique of capitalism that called not for revolution in some distant future, but imaginative acts of resistance, refusal, and mind-alteration in the present. Influenced by Dadaaist absurdity and deeply interested in how the routines of everyday life dull our responses to the world, they carried out, among other things, absurd actions that derailed our expectations of how life is supposed to “run.” In their spirit, here are some amusing, enlightening, and absurd actions, suggested by Twin Cities--based artist and curator Jo del Pesco, to make your day a little stranger--and your life that much less stuck in the grooves of the “way things are supposed to be.”

Flowers to Strangers.
Go through the dumpster of a local flower shop, pull out the flowers that still look okay, and give them to strangers on the street.

Guerrilla Farming
Plant vegetables or flowers on a traffic island in the middle of a street.

Water Closet
Hang a black-light poster in the bathroom of a gas station, and then install a black-light bulb.

Music for Telemarketers
Learn to play a song using the number keys on the telephone. When a telephone solicitor calls, play it for them.

Hundred Flyers
Stand on the street corner with 100 one dollar bills and try to hand them out as flyers. Count how many people ignore you.

Mystery Aid
Sneak into a friend’s house and fold the laundry or do the dishes.

Soft Cover
Sew a fabric cover for a local park bench. Consider padding it like an old toaster cozy

The Power of a Changed Life (Part II)

2010-12-19T17:21:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "The Power of a Changed Life." Decision Magazine Vol 45, No 1, January 2004. pg 17-9
KEYWORDS: inner-city, violence, grace, wisdom

Q: Your childhood was spent in a seriously deprived and difficult inner-city environment, yet you wound up attending Yale University. That’s quite an accomplishment.

A: I grew up in both Detroit and Boston. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant situation. There was never money for anything. There were rats and roaches; sirens and gangs--particularly in Boston, when we lived right in the middle of the tenements. Seeing people lying on the ground or dying was not uncommon. Two of my cousins were killed. I didn’t anticipate that I would live beyond the age of 25.

When I was 14, I tried to stab another youngster. My knife blade struck his belt buckle and broke. I locked myself in the bathroom and thought about that. That day I started reading the Book of Proverbs, and I prayed a lot. The Lord took my anger away from me, and I also began to gather insight into who God is and into the incredible power one could have from Him. I had accepted Christ when I was eight years old at a church service, but at that point I realized that by developing the potential that God had given me, I could live in any kind of environment and do anything. The Lord had put that within me, as He puts it within each of us.

The Power of a Changed Life (Part 1)

2010-12-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "The Power of a Changed Life." Decision Magazine Vol 45, No 1, January 2004. pg 17-9
KEYWORDS: stress, identity, God in control

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson has been director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at John Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore, since 1984...

Q: How do you keep your composure and sense that God is in control when faced with the enormous difficulties you encounter as a neurosurgeon?

A: It’s easy for me because every sing day I am dealing with complex things. I realize that disaster is just around the corner almost all the time. I think that’s probably one of the reasons that neurosurgeons die early. The average age of death for a neurosurgeon is 59. You are dealing with stress as stressful because God gets all the credit for all the good things, but He also is in control when bad things happen. The only thing He requires of me is that I do my best. That’s all I have to do, and recognizing that takes an awful lot of stress off of me.

Q: How do you integrate your faith with your work?

A: I start out every day with my own personal devotional time of praying, reading the Bible and contemplating. I just try to keep God on my mind in everything I do. I tell myself, “You are a Christian, and you represent Christ.” This means everything that comes out of my mouth and every action I do must be affirming and positive to people. I try to keep it that way no matter what is going on and no matter what anyone is doing.

Mister Rogers and the Pacifier

2010-12-19T17:10:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Presbyterian Media Mission. “Presbyterian Media Mission Remembers TV's Fred Rogers.” PCUSA NEWS. February 27, 2003
KEYWORDS: Mister Rogers, pacifier, important, lost, found

PITTSBURGH - TV's most beloved children's program host and producer was ordained in 1962 by Pittsburgh Presbytery for The Rev. Fred Rogers to minister to children and their families through the medium of television. He graduated from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in 1963.

"He not only served as a neighbor and friend to viewers but was held in great esteem by many members of the Presbyterian Church and a variety of folks in the television industry," said The Rev. Jim Mead, Pastor to Pittsburgh Presbytery and PMM Board member.

In 2000, Rogers was honored by the Religion Communicators Council who presented Rogers a Lifetime Wilbur Award in supporting religious values in the public media. The Rev. Dennis C. Benson accepted on Fred's behalf the Wilbur Award with these words that capture the essence of Mr. Roger's ministry . . . "A friend was recently walking down the street in Pittsburgh with Fred Rogers. Fred suddenly stopped and picked up an infants pacifier on the sidewalk. He said, 'Someone lost something very important.' He walked up to a nearby house and knocked on the door. When a woman answered the door, Fred asked, 'Did someone here lose this?' She said, 'Why yes. Thank you.' So on behalf of the children of America, and the child in each of us, thank you for honoring Fred Rogers.

Mister Rogers and Dr. William Orr

2010-12-19T17:08:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Zoba, Wendy. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” Christianity Today. March 6, 2000
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/003/1.38.html
KEYWORDS: coat, Martin Luther, fortress, forgiveness, love, Mister Rogers, Pittsburgh

[At Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA] Mister Rogers studied systematic theology with Dr. William S. Orr. "From then on I took everything he offered; it could have been underwater basket weaving.

"He was a great influence on many of our lives. Not just because he was brilliant," he says. "He was the kind of person who would go out on a winter's day for lunch and come back without his overcoat.

"I studied Greek with him and then I studied New Testament with him. Every Sunday, my wife and I used to go to the nursing home to visit him. One Sunday we had just sung 'A Mighty Fortress Is Our God' and I was full of this one verse. I said, 'Dr. Orr, we just sang this hymn and I've got to ask you about part of it.

"'You know where it says-The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him. For, lo, his doom is sure …. one little word will fell him? Dr. Orr, what is that one thing that would wipe out evil?'

"He said, 'Evil simply disintegrates in the presence of forgiveness. When you look with accusing eyes at your neighbor, that is what evil would want, because the more the accuser'-which, of course, is the word Satan in Hebrew-'can spread the accusing spirit, the greater evil spreads.' Dr. Orr said, 'On the other hand, if you can look with the eyes of the Advocate on your neighbor, those are the eyes of Jesus.'

"I've never forgotten that."

Parable of the Ten Virgins

2010-12-19T17:05:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Barclay Commentary on Matthew
SCRIPTURE: Matthew 25:1-13
KEYWORDS: poem, too late, oil, lamp, virgins

Poem by Tennyson...

"Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

No light had we; for that we do repent;
And learning this, the bridegroom will relent.
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

No light: so late! and dark and chill the night!
O let us in, that we may find the light!
Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet?
O let us in, tho' late, to kiss his feet!
No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now."

How do you identify yourself?

2010-12-19T17:00:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "Revolution" by George Barna, pg 88, Barnabooks.
KEYWORDS: identity, 2 Corinthians 5:19-20

"In his book, "Revolution", Pollster George Barna says one of the reasons the church has so little influence on the world today is that most believers do not understand their true identity in Jesus. Barna says, "Our research indicates that churchgoers are more likely to see themselves as Americans, consumers, professionals, parents, and unique individuals than zealous disciples of Jesus Christ. Until that image is reoriented, churches will not have the capacity to change their world."

Generosity

2010-12-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: www.bpnews.net (Baptist Press), "Hondurans give $18,000 to Hispanic church hit by Katrina," October 21, 2005.
KEYWORDS: generosity, 2 Corinthians 1:4

"Seven years ago, the Good Shepherd Hispanic Baptist Church in Metairie, Louisiana showed compassion to fellow believers in Honduras who were suffering after a hit from Hurricane Mitch. The people at Good Shepherd sent twelve containers of food and clothing to an evangelical church and a Baptist church in Honduras in 1998 to meet the needs left by the storm. When Hurricane Katrina hit Good Shepherd hard this summer, they were surprised when both Honduran churches returned the favor by helping them.

Though the people of the Honduran Baptist Church were poor people who worked in the local marketplace, they sent their pastor a love offering of $1,000 to help their American friends. The other church from Honduras sent their pastor and five workmen along with a gift of $17,000 to help Good Shepherd. The men helped in cleanup efforts, and cooked a chicken dinner for a celebration service attended by more than 450 people.

The Pastor of Good Shepherd Church, Gonzalo Rodriguez said Good Shepherd never expected the Honduran churches would remember what they did seven years ago and decide to come and help. He said, "What makes a difference is that Honduras is what we consider a country of the third world. They are very poor people and we never expected they would come here to help us."

Rodriguez is thankful for the gifts and admits Good Shepherd will struggle for some time because most of their congregation was scattered by the storm and have not returned. He hopes the church can reach out to other Hispanics in the community during this opportune time. He added, "We need to organize an evangelistic team because there are lots of needs among all the people without a place to stay, and we need the wisdom to see how we can help these people."

Battle for Your Worship

2010-12-19T16:53:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "The Air I Breath: Worship As a Way of Life" by Louie Giglio; pg 30
KEYWORDS: worship, idolatry

In his book, "The Air I Breath: Worship As a Way of Life", Louie Giglio writes, "Worship also matters because every day there's a battle for your worship.

The things we elevate. The values we serve. None of those choices are made in a vacuum. There's a war raging for our worship, and it's been raging since before there was time.

Even before the earth was formed, one of God's highest angels bolted from His presence, refusing to join the ranks of the true worshipers, refusing to exalt God above all. The account records that in a flash Satan fell like lightning from heaven. Exalting himself more than God, Satan was banned from His presence."

Footwashing

2010-12-19T16:51:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: http://www.mnnonline (Mission Network News), "Foot washing teams share the Gospel in Zambia," October 10, 2005.
KEYWORDS: footwashing, servanthood, John 13:14-15

A Teen Missions International team recently learned there was more to caring for the needy than just collecting and distributing shoes and socks. The group of teens traveled to Zambia with nothing more than backpack for their personal belongings and a duffle bag full of shoes and socks to distribute to AIDS orphans in the region. When they arrived, they used puppets to share the gospel and helped the children learn to read. Most of the African Children had never owned a pair of shoes in their life. This presented the mission team with a unique opportunity.

Before they could be fitted with shoes, the orphan's feet had to be treated because many had sores and worm infestations. The Teen Missions group displayed genuine servanthood by washing the feet of the children and then putting socks and shoes on for them. President of Teen Mission International, Bob Bland says the Foot Washing Ministry was a first. The team distributed 6,000 pairs of socks and 2,400 pairs of shoes in Jesus' name. He said, "We had hundreds of young people that accepted Christ as their personal Savior." Teen Missions is planning similar outreaches next year, and has already begun to collect shoes.

Picking a Name

2010-12-19T16:48:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Albuquerque Journal, Mark Magnier, (Los Angeles Times), Mongolians Look to History for Surnames, October 24, 2004. Quoted by http://www.freshministry.org
KEYWORDS: identity, Galatians 2:20

A government initiative in the nation of Mongolia is causing many residents to reconsider their identity. For a long time, Mongolians identified themselves using only first names. In an isolated nomadic culture, that method of identification worked well. Officials are asking people to add a surname now to avoid confusion in an increasingly modern society. The plan is to help people delve into their clan histories and discover how they are related.

Surnames became a bigger issue recently when the government introduced a new identity card. More than 90 percent of the nation's 2.5 million people have adopted surnames. Some have chosen names reflecting their personalities or interests. One school principal chose the surname "Nomad" because of his wandering spirit. The nation's defense minister chose the last name "Cosmos" because he was the only Mongolian to venture into space. The most popular surname is Borjigin, the clan of legendary
Mongolian warrior Genghis Khan. For those having difficulty choosing a new identity Serjee, a Mongolian linguist and director of the State Central Library of Mongolia, suggests residents look for local histories that might reveal a family or clan name. Serjee says most original Mongolian surnames were bestowed by neighbors in the village and might not be very desirable. Instead Seejee suggests adopting a clan name specific to a person's area, profession or hometown. He says a nickname or something unique about a person's lifestyle also works. Serjee adds, "Be imaginative, be brave. Make up your own name. They may be new now, but in 50 years they'll be old."

COMMENTARY:
Names are an important component of our identities. When we accept Christ, we are given a new name-we're called "Christians." Now we bear the name of our Lord and have a new identity. One that should guide our conduct.

God as Judo Master

2010-12-19T16:44:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: http://www.freshministry.org
KEYWORDS:

"Chad Hall, lead Pastor of Connection Church in Hickory, North Carolina says, "We believe glimpses of God can be found in culture, even those parts that are seemingly opposed to him. We envision God as similar to a great judo master, one who uses the opponent's energy to his own advantage."

--Leadership Journal, Fall 2004, p. 42

It is one thing for a church to be culturally relevant, but quite another to leverage culture for the gospel's advantage. Or to put it the way Hall does, to use the opponent's energy to our advantage. The goal is not to get the culture as a whole to act more like Christians, or to get the church to act more like the culture as a whole, rather it is to use whatever means necessary to proclaim the gospel so that people may be radically transformed by the gospel.

Romans 1:16 (NIV) "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile."

In Humility Consider Others Better than Yourselves

2010-12-18T19:05:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "Barn Dance" by Glenn Q. Bannerman. Presbyterian News Service, December 17, 2010. http://www.pcusa.org/news/2010/12/17/barn-dance/
KEYWORDS: incarnation, humility,
SCRIPTURE: Philippians 2

During a conference, participants had arrived for an old fashioned Montreat-style barn dance. The bleachers were full and the floor was comfortably crowded. As the Stoney Creek Boys played good mountain dance music, everyone danced the figures with ease and all were enjoying the company of friends and conferees.
As the caller, I decided to do a trio dance called the Black Mountain trio in which trios are facing trios. The instructions were given and the dance was about to begin, when two little boys came forth and said, “Mister, we want to dance.”

So I asked for one person to come and dance with the little boys to make the trio. To my surprise, out of the more than 100 conferees on the side lines, no one came forth. I asked several times, with no response, and then out of desperation, I asked, “Is there a Christian in the house who could dance with these two boys?”
Still, no one came forth. To keep the many dancers on the floor from waiting any longer, I was about to say to the little fellows, “Just pretend that you have a third person.”

Then, at the far end of the barn, I saw folks moving out of the way and, to my surprise, a gentleman in a wheel-chair came rolling across the floor toward the little boys. He rolled up between the two fellows, held out his hands and made the trio complete.

I worried about how the whole dance sequence would work with the new trio’s having to move around the dance floor, but then somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that Scripture has something to say about our being led by children.

At that point, I relaxed and called the figures and to my amazement the participants danced as if there wasn’t a wheel-chair on the floor. It was beautiful to see the graceful movement of the dancers on the floor. At the end of the dance, the two young boys hugged their partner with huge grins on their faces.

I, of course, recognized the man in the wheel chair because he was the keynote speaker for the conference and that year’s moderator of the General Assembly — Howard Rice.

As we talked after the dance, Howard said he was embarrassed that no one came forth as partners for the two young fellows. He said, “After you asked for ‘a Christian’ and still no one came forth, as keynote speaker of the conference, I could do no other than come forth in order that the young boys wouldn’t have to pretend that there was a third person to dance with them.”

Even though I have had many wonderful experiences seeing Scripture being fulfilled instantaneously while leading recreation, this has been a highlight of my recreation ministry. The same Jesus who came alive in a barn for the shepherds and townspeople of Bethlehem that first Christmas came alive for those two boys that night in a barn at Montreat in the form of Howard Rice.

At the close of the evening one conferee remarked to me that my style of barn-dancing just isn’t everyone’s “cup of tea.” I recognize that.

But when there is an obvious need, it seems to me that this is a time for self-giving so that others may enjoy life. Mary and Joseph didn’t want to be in that barn and Jesus didn’t want to go to the Cross, but they did it for you and me.

Someone Who Cares

2010-12-17T05:56:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "New Smartphone App Pretends to be Your Girlfriend" Reuters, December 14, 2010. http://www.canada.com/health/smartphone+pretends+your+girlfriend/3974210/story.html

KEYWORDS: lonely, community, friendship, marriage, unity

Stressed out South Korean men without time to date can now at least pretend they have a girlfriend, albeit on their smartphone.

Launched on November 30 by Nabix, a South Korean developer, the iPhone application "Honey it's me!" is warming lonely hearts with the voice of "Mina," a 20-something virtual woman.

For $1.99, Mina will make video-calls four times a day, showering subscribers with a message of bliss from 100 available. With recorded messages such as "good night, sweet dreams," Nabix said it would help subscribers feel someone cares for them and is consistently thinking of them.

According to Nabix, the application was downloaded 80,000 times on the first day alone.
An Android operating system version is expected to be launched this week and Nabix plans to provide the service in other languages, including Japanese.

Dichotomy

2010-12-14T05:38:00.000-08:00

QUOTE:

"I have often wondered that persons who boast of professing the Christian religion -- namely love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity -- should quarrel with such rancorous animosity and display daily toward one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues which they profess, is the readiest criteria of their faith."

Baruch Spinoza (17th Century)
(quoted in Douglas Moo's The Letter of James )

"A Christmas Carol" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

2010-12-14T05:35:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "A Christmas Carol" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Reposted at http://erb.kingdomnow.org/poem-a-christmas-carol-samuel-taylor-coleridge-vol-3-45/

The shepherds went their hasty way,
And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:
And now they checked their eager tread,
For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung,
A Mother’s song the Virgin-Mother sung.

They told her how a glorious light,
Streaming from a heavenly throng,
Around them shone, suspending night!
While sweeter than a mother’s song,
Blest Angels heralded the Saviour’s birth,
Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

She listened to the tale divine,
And closer still the Babe she pressed;
And while she cried, the Babe is mine!
The milk rushed faster to her breast:
Joy rose within her, like a summer’s morn;
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
Poor, simple, and of low estate!
That strife should vanish, battle cease,
O why should this thy soul elate?
Sweet Music’s loudest note, the Poet’s story, —
Didst thou ne’er love to hear of fame and glory?

And is not War a youthful king,
A stately Hero clad in mail?
Beneath his footsteps laurels spring;
Him Earth’s majestic monarchs hail
Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye
Compels the maiden’s love-confessing sigh.

“Tell this in some more courtly scene,
To maids and youths in robes of state!
I am a woman poor and mean,
And therefore is my soul elate.
War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,
That from the agéd father tears his child!

A murderous fiend, by fiends adored,
He kills the sire and starves the son;
The husband kills, and from her board
Steals all his widow’s toil had won;
Plunders God’s world of beauty; rends away
All safety from the night, all comfort from the day.

Then wisely is my soul elate,
That strife should vanish, battle cease:
I’m poor and of a low estate,
The Mother of the Prince of Peace.
Joy rises in me, like a summer’s morn:
Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born.”

We Believe in the Resurrection

2010-12-14T05:31:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: "We believe in the resurrection" by Joel McClure. (I received this via e-mail. I believe it was found in Generate Magazine.)

KEYWORDS: Easter, hope, purpose, difference

We believe in the resurrection, by Joel McClure

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. We don't just believe that the resurrection happened. We don't just believe things about the resurrection of Jesus. We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.

In a world where it appears that death wins, where violence, murder, disease, and terrorists might cause us to fear and lose heart, we say that we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. We say that there is a power beyond our understanding that is able to give life back to those who've lost it. And not metaphorical life, but real, actual, fish-eating, hand-touching, word-speaking, bread-breaking, sitting down at the table life.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. In a world that teaches and trains us to protect and secure ourselves, we say there is a power at work now in this world that exposes the fragility and short-sightedness of such so-called securities, and offers, no, promises and has proven the ability to deliver us through, not merely from, danger and death.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. And so we refuse to accommodate ourselves to the fear, despair, and cynicism all around us. We choose, instead, to give words and expression to the groaning of the creation. We say that a new day has begun, and the darkness all around us will find no more safe quarter, for the light of life has dawned. Death's teeth have been pulled; it holds no threat any longer.

So we live our lives with abandon. We stand up for and alongside those who are most at risk, and we say in word and in action that we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. God has begun His good revolution, and change is on the way. Oppression, violence, deception, rejection, selfishness, apathy, brutality, manipulation, malice, murder, hatred and all their kind are living on borrowed time.

We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus. So we refuse to be seduced or coerced into sharing in the behavior of that which will be removed and replaced. Instead, we love rather than hate, we share rather than steal, we give rather than take, we show kindness rather than brutality, we tell the truth rather than deceive, we hope rather than despair, we believe rather than doubt, we help rather than oppress, we heal rather than destroy, we embrace rather than strike, we lose rather than win at any cost. Because we believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.

Moral Examples

2010-12-10T05:16:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Bennett, William. “Teaching the Virtues.” Imprimis 32.2 (Febrary 2003).
KEYWORDS: sacrifice, moral example, invisible, remember, follow

You have probably seen Mrs. Beamer on television—Lisa Beamer, the wife of Todd Beamer, who was one of the heroes on Flight 93. She has said that her children will look at the picture of her husband every day, and that she will tell them daily that he is a hero and they are to try to be like him.

This reminded of a statistic I uncovered in a book that I wrote on the American family a few years back. We all know, based on countless studies as well as common sense, that if you want to raise happy and successful children, the best fomrula is a two-parent family…But the statistic I discovered when writing my book was that children who lose a father in the line of duty—because the father is a police officer or a soldier for example—are indistinguishable from children who grow up in intact two-parent families. Why is that? It is because the moral example doesn’t have to be there physically. It can be in the mind and in the heart. As a result of Lisa Beamer saying. “Be like him,” then, Todd Beamer will be in the minds and hearts of his kids.

This illustrates one of my favorite themes: the importance of things we can’t see, of non-material things. Moral examples can exist in the memory of a father or in the memory of the Founding Fathers or in the memory of any of the marvelous heroes in the long history of humankind. The historian Tacitus wrote, “The task of history is to hold our for rebrobation every evil word and deed, and to hold out for praise every great and noble word and deed.” So we don’t need courses in values. We need good courses in history.

Alone with the Silence

2010-12-10T05:13:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Shahin, Jim. “Takings and Leavings.” American Way. March 1, 2003.
KEYWORDS: silence, noise,

Was I upset when my car stereo was stolen? I suppose you could say so…At first, I blamed the victim, i.e., me. Around here, we park on the street and I hadn’t locked my doors…But then I rationalized that not locking my doors was a good thing. If they want your radio, ready or not, here they’ll come. At least my windows were intact…Later, as I drove around town, it occurred to me that maybe the vandal did me a favor.

I hate the radio.

I obsessively search the dial for something to listen to. There’s Britany and classic rock…and “soft rock” and plodding anger-drenched heavy metal and insipid pop country and easy listening (which is anything but) and watered-down hip-hop and morning deejays who mistake obnoxiousness for humor. There are apoplectic talk-radio political commentators who might blow a synapse right through your dashboard. There are fund drives and commercials and hucksters of every stripe.

Considering I would no longer be subjecting myself to any of that, the theft was actually a sort of liberation…So, in a way, I should actually thank the thief. In my car-cocooned solitude, not having the distraction of all that noise would give me the opportunity to listen to my own thoughts. The problem is, I discovered after only a few short trips around town, that I don’t have any thoughts.

War and our Fallen Nature

2010-12-10T05:11:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Hanson, Victor Davis. “Old Books in the New World.” Weekly Standard. March 4, 2002.
(A review of The Culture of Classicism by Winterer)
KEYWORDS: war, peace, discouragement, wisdom, tragedy

In the days since September 11, my own classics students have cited Plato’s “Peace is only a parenthesis,” and Heraclitus’ “War is the father of all things.” Meanwhile, PhDs in counseling and sociology have been holding rallies to decry this apparently inexplicably barbarous lapse of education and maturity on the part of the United States in its decision to go to war. Classics seems to have the strange effect of making its twenty-year-old students wise beyond their years.

Indeed, we didn’t fail to foresee the attacks from the Middle East because too few Americans are acquainted with peace studies, multiculturalism, and various therapeutic theories that emanate daily from the university. Rather, our puzzlement at someone who hates us so in 2002 arises from our knowing so little of the unchanging nature of man and politics. An hour with Thucydides—whether reading of the great debate at Sparta, the stasis at Corcyra, the Melian Dialogue, or the argument over going to Syracuse—might have warned us that people attack others over their “fear, honor, and self-interest.”

Faithful Interpretation and the Church

2010-12-10T05:07:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: by Mark Achtemeier, overheard.
KEYWORD: bible, scripture, interpretation, church

"Ireanaeus of Lyons noted the problem of multiple readings of Scripture in the second century. He compared biblical interpretation practiced by the heretics of his day to a person who takes apart a mosaic of the emperor and reassembles the colored stones so as now to depict a dog. The raw materials are all from an authentic source, says Irenaeus, but their arrangement and interrelations communicate a vastly different message!

The heretics and the true church both quote Scripture, but the church knows how to arrange the pieces of the biblical witness into a faithful portrait."

--Mark Achtemeier

Knowing Where to Tap

2010-12-10T05:05:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: overheard
KEYWORDS: wisdom, knowledge, tools

A railroad company was having some serious difficulties with a specific diesel engine. No matter how the workers tried, they could not get the engine started. At last, they called an expert on diesel locomotives. Hearrived and examined the engine. He then produced a small hammer. He lightly tapped the engine with the hammer. The engine sprang into life. He later sent the company a bill for $1000. The company asked the expert for an itemized bill. He sent the following: For tapping the engine with a hammer, $10; For knowing where to tap the engine, $990.

Hospitality on September 11

2010-12-10T05:02:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Debra Gordon in Family Circle.“Strength in Numbers.” Readers Digest. September 2002

KEYWORDS: hospitality, unity, kindness, outreach, gratitude

On September 11, Lloyd George was ending a Salvation Army meeting in Lewisporte, Newfoundland when his cell phone rang. Hanging up, he told his committee: “There’s been an emergency in the States. They need our town.” Thirty-eight U.S.-bound planes with 6595 passengers and crew had been diverted to a nearby airport.

Lewisporte (pop 4000) threw open its schools, churches and social clubs to take as many as they could. Mayor Bill Hooper had all the temporary shelters wired with extra phone lines and cable TV. Townspeople delivered bedding, underwear and pajamas, and served hot meals three times a day. Doctors and nurses went on 24-hour call; pharmacies filled prescriptions for free. In the evening, the Newfoundlanders entertained their guests with folk songs, poems, karaoke.

Recalls one passenger, “Short of being home, we were in the best place I can imagine at a terrible time. We felt safe, cared for, welcomed.”

When flights finally began ferrying people home, grateful passengers pledged to start a college fund for Lewisporte students. By July 2002 the figure had reached $50,000.

United We Stand

2010-12-10T04:59:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: by Kevin Sack in The New York Times. “Strength in Numbers.” Readers Digest. September 2002

KEYWORDS: offering, gratitude, help, thanksgiving, unity, communion

In 1867, two years after South Carolina was devastated by fire at the close of the Civil War, a group of New York City firemen made a magnanimous peace offering. They shipped a state-of-the-art hose carriage to Columbia. When it sank in a shipwreck off the Outer Banks, they raised $2500 for another.

The Southerners were touched by the gesture and promised to return the favor should similar misfortune ever strike New York. After the devastating attacks of September 11 some 135 years later, that day has come. Lead by a brigade of schoolchildren, Columbia raised $525,000 to buy a fire engine for New York.

White Knoll Middle School principal Nancy L. Turner conceived the idea and was spurred on by Columbia’s fire chief John D. Jansen, Jr., a New York City native, who told her of the 1867 gift. As word of the campaign spread, unsolicited contributions poured in.

Today, as in 1867, a gift may narrow regional differences. According to Turner, since 9/11 even prideful Southerners have come to see New York as the capital of the American heart.

Proper Motivation

2010-12-10T04:55:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Greg Boozier in Readers Digest. September 2002

KEYWORDS: motivation, keep awake, risk

Tech support people like me spend our days on the phone with customers. Many like to chat while waiting for their computers to reboot. One man told me he’d been a long-haul truck driver.

“I’d love to drive a big rig,” I said, “but I’d worry about falling asleep at the wheel.”

“Here’s a tip to stay awake,” he offered. “Put a $100 bill in your left hand and hold it out the window.”

The Risk of Birth, An Advent Poem by Madeleine L'Engle (1973)

2010-12-10T04:53:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: reposted by Diana Butler Bass on her Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=475159003142
KEYWORDS: light shines in the darkness, Christmas, birth, incarnation

This is no time for a child to be born,
With the earth betrayed by war & hate
And a comet slashing the sky to warn
That time runs out & the sun burns late.

That was no time for a child to be born,
In a land in the crushing grip of Rome;
Honour & truth were trampled by scorn-
Yet here did the Saviour make his home.

When is the time for love to be born?
The inn is full on the planet earth,
And by a comet the sky is torn-
Yet Love still takes the risk of birth.

Being Aware of God's Presence

2010-12-04T15:56:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Reuters, "Town gets Divine Help with Litterbugs", December 2, 2004
KEYWORDS: hide, presence

"A Japanese town believes divine help played a role in getting rid of litter in parking lots and roadsides. The town of Nagato in Japan's Nagano prefecture wanted a way to control the garbage dropped by tourists passing through on their way to nearby ski areas. The city decided to place statues of a Buddhist figure at parking spots on the main road through town. In the four months following the appearance of the statues, which were carved by local residents, litter almost disappeared. The Japanese news agency NHK interviewed drivers, and found that the religious statues had a unique influence. One driver who was interviewed, said, "I can't drop litter now, not with the statue looking at me."

Doing My Duty

2010-12-04T15:52:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: http://www.stamfordhistory.org/dav_abraham1.htm

Without a great deal of formal law training, [Abraham Davenport] was many times appointed judge of the Fairfield County Court, the Maritime Court of Fairfield County and as Stamford’s Judge of Probate. Throughout the American Revolution he served on Governor Jonathan Trumbull’s Council of Safety, “which for all practical purposes ran … [Connecticut] … on a day-to-day basis.” He was both a state and local leader with a gift of forming laws. Abraham’s character was firm, even stern, constant in his dedication to his responsibilities concerning all of community and church life, which at this time were a single entity. Nothing embodies this better than his role during New England’s famous Dark Day—a day where the skies of the Northeast, for no explicable reason remained almost completely dim. Davenport’s resolve during this troubling time is described by Timothy Dwight of Yale in his Travels in New England and New York, published 1822.

“The 19th of May, 1780, was a remarkably dark day. Candles were lighted in many houses; the birds were silent and disappeared; and the fowls retired to roost. The legislature of Connecticut was then in session at Hartford. A very general opinion prevailed that the Day of Judgment was at hand. The House of Representatives, being unable to transact their business, adjourned. A proposal to adjourn the Council [Senate or Upper House] was under consideration. When the opinion of Col. Davenport was asked, he answered, ‘I am against an adjournment. The Day of Judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause for an adjournment; if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.”

And so the State Senate continued working on legislation by candlelight until later in the afternoon, when the darkness eventually dissipated, permitting sunlight to return. The cause of this strange occurrence has never been conclusively determined by scholars, but the theory of smoke emerging from a vast forest fire in Canada has been suggested. Over the years Abraham Davenport’s example of calmness and fortitude during a period of uncertainty and darkness has inspired many on local, state and national levels of public life.

The Wrong Question

2010-12-04T15:31:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Cindy Patterson. Readers Digest. January 2003

KEYWORDS: question, essential, important, first things, misunderstanding

An adorable little girl walked into my pet shop and asked, “Excuse me, do you have any rabbits here?”

“I do,” I answered and leaning down to her eye level I asked, “Did you want a white rabbit or would you rather have a soft, fuzzy black rabbit?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think my python really cares.”

Missing Fan

2010-12-04T15:29:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Readers Digest. January 2003

KEYWORDS: idolatry, obsession, fanatic, absence

While the football fan was thrilled to be at the Super Bowl, he was disappointed with the location of his seat. Peering across the stadium through his binoculars, he spied an empty seat on the 50-yard line and made his way there.

He asked the man in the next seat over, “May I sit here?”

“Sure,” the man replied. “This was my wife’s seat. She was a huge football fan, and we came to the games together all the time until she passed away.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the fan said. “But I’m curious. Why didn’t you give the extra ticket to a friend or relative?”

Replied the widower, “They’re all at the funeral.”

Homelessness

2010-12-04T15:27:00.001-08:00

SOURCE: Mouw, Richard. The Smell of Sawdust. Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2000. P9

In an essay published over a half-century ago, German philosopher Martin Heidegger predicted that “homelessness is coming to be the destiny of the world” [Letter on Humanism]. Heidegger wasn’t thinking so much of the literal homelessness we see so much of in our cities today. Rather, he was prophesying about a growing sense of aimlessness in human life—the loss of a sense of belonging that is so much a part of what is referred to these days as the ‘postmodern’ experience.

Heidegger’s prophecy was an accurate one. And we can hear strong voices today actually praising this experience of homelessness. A well-known psychologist wrote a book a while back in which he argued that the best way to help folks who are living aimless lives is to provide them with the coping skills necessary for the exciting journey of an “endless wandering in the maze of meaning” [Gergen, The Saturated Self]. He summarized his approach by quoting a phrase coined by another scholar: mazing grace. Those of us who can still smell the sawdust refuse to drop the letter “a” from this phrase. To be sure, we also know what it is like to wander. Our own lives have taken us “through many dangers, toils, and snares.” But our pilgrimages are not aimless ones: “Tis grace hath brought [us] safe thus far, and grace will lead [us] home.” We have found the path that leads us to a place of eternal safety.

The Sawdust Trail

2010-12-04T15:26:00.001-08:00

SOURCE: Mouw, Richard. The Smell of Sawdust. Zondervan Publishing House: Grand Rapids, Michigan. 2000. P9

I have long assumed that the main reason for the sawdust in the revival tents was to keep things from getting too muddy—and it surely did serve this function. But recently I discovered that the image of a sawdust trail also has an important metaphorical meaning derived from the nineteenth-century lumber camps. When lumberjacks got lost in the woods, they would walk in various directions until they found sawdust on the ground. Then they would follow the sawdust trail back to a place of safety. The evangelist Billy Sunday knew of this practice and he used the image in calling sinners to follow the sawdust trail to a place of spiritual safety.

Love in the Christmas Season

2010-12-04T15:25:00.001-08:00

SOURCE: “The Postlogue.” The Prologue. December 20, 2002

1 Corinthians 13, Christmas Version

If I decorate my house perfectly with plaid bows, strands of twinkling lights and shiny balls, but do not show love to those close to me, I’m just another decorator.

If I slave away in the kitchen, baking dozens of Christmas cookies, preparing gourmet meals and arranging a beautifully adorned table at mealtime, but do not show love to those close to me, I’m just another cook.

If I work at the soup kitchen, carol in the nursing home and give all that I have to charity, but do not show love to those closest to me, it profits me nothing.

If I trim the spruce with shimmering angels and crocheted snowflakes, attend a myriad of holiday parties and sing in the choir’s cantata but do not focus on Christ, I have missed the point.

Love stops the cooking to hug the child.

Love sets aside the decorating to kiss the husband.

Love is kind, though harried and tired.

Love doesn’t envy another’s home that has coordinated Christmas china and table linens.

Love doesn’t yell at the kids to get out of the way, but is thankful they are there to be in the way.

Love doesn’t give only to those who are able to give in return but rejoices in giving to those who can’t.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.

Video games will break, pearl necklaces will be lost, golf clubs will rust. But the gift of love will endure.

A Push

2010-12-04T15:24:00.001-08:00

SOURCE: “The Postlogue.” The Prologue. December 6, 2002.

A man and his wife are awakened at 3 o’clock in the morning by a loud pounding on the door. The man gets up and goes to the door where a down-on-his-luck stranger is standing in the pouring rain, asking for a push.

“Not a chance!” says the husband, “It’s three o’clock in the morning!” He slams the door and returns to bed.

“Who was it?” asks the wife.

“Just a stranger asking for a push,” he answers.

“Did you help him?” she asks.

“NO, I did not! It’s three o’clock in the morning and it’s pouring out!”

“Well, you’ve got a short memory,” says his wife. “Can’t you remember time about three months ago when we broke down on holiday and those two guys helped us by giving us a push? I think you should help him.”

The man does as she says and gets dressed and goes out into the pounding rain and calls out into the dark: “Hello, are you still there?”

“Yes,” comes the answer.

“Do you still need a push?” calls out the husband.

“Yes, please!” comes the reply from the dark.”

“Where are you?” asks the husband.

“Over here, on the swing,” the stranger replies.

Personal Honor

2010-12-04T15:23:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: “Perot’s Veep From Hanoi To the Debate" by Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale. Wall Street Journal. October 13, 1992.

Vice Adm Stockdale describes his experience as a prisoner of war in Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

“Chivalry was dead in my prison. Its name was Hoa Lo, meaning ‘fiery furnace,’ locatd in downtown Hanoi, a prison the French built in 1895.

“I arrived there, a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, in the late morning of a rainy Sunday in September 1965, a stretcher case. I had a broken leg (which my welcoming party, a street mob of civilians, had inflicted), a broken back (which I charge off to my carelessness in not having had the presence of mind to brace myself correctly before ejecting into low-attitude, high-speed air from a tumbling airplane), and a gunshot wound in my good leg (which an rate farmer hand pumped into my stretcher during my first night on the ground, an act I credit as morally neutral just to keep the score balanced). The North Vietnamese officer who presided over my arrival after three days in the back of a truck was about my age (42); also a career military man.”

“I asked him for medical attention. ‘You have a medical problem and you have a political problem,’ he said. ‘In this country we handle political problem first.’ That was the last time the subject of medical attention for me ever came up in my next eight years as a POW.”

“There are a lot of things you can’t do with torture. Aristotle said that compulsion and free will can coexist, and he was right. The man about to undergo torture must have burned into his mind the fact that he can be hemmed in only within a very narrow window, and that he need not volunteer information or ‘spill his guts.’”

“Religious conviction? It was certainly a positive force for the great majority of us. But indispensable? No, Some good prisoners did not rely on it. What is indispensable to avoiding entrapment in the web of fear and guilt is the ability to stand isolated, without friends and surrounded by entreaters, and quite uncharitably say ‘no.’ This is a very hard thing for many mannerly American men and women to bring themselves to do.”

“Eight years in a Hanoi prison, survival and dignity. What does it all come down to? It does not come down to coping or supplication or hatred or strength beyond the grasp of any normal person. It comes down to comradeship, and it comes down to pride, dignity, an enduring sense of self-worth and to that enigmatic mixture of conscience and egoism called personal honor.”

The Man Who Would Not Forget

2010-12-04T15:20:00.000-08:00

SOURCE: Actemeier, Elizabeth. “The Man Who Would Not Forget.” Presbyterians Pro-Life News. Fall 1996, p 9.

The Book of Job in the Old Testament is about a man who would not forget. He would not forget that his life was inextricably tied to his Maker, that God had created him in the first place, and that God alone determined whether he lived or died. “Thy hands fashioned and made me,” he prayed, “and wilt thou turn me to dust again?” (10:8,9)

Certainly Job was suffering horribly. He lost all of his livelihood, and his sons and daughters died in a tornado (ch. 1). But the crowning blow was that he was afflicted with “loathsome sores form the sole of his foot to the crown of his head,” so that all he could do was sit in the village dump and scrape himself with broken pieces of pottery. Three of his friends came to comfort him, but instead, were struck speechless at the horrible sight of his agony (ch. 2).

HIS DESIRE FOR DEATH

Suffering such torment, Job wished to die. “I loathe my life,” he said, and he would gladly choose death (7:15-16). He had no pain killers to dull his misery, no hospice care to ease his suffering. He wished that he had never been born or that he had died at birth: “Why is light given to him that is in misery?” he asked (3:11). He could see no purpose for his life or suffering.

Yet Job knew it was not in his power to determine his own life and death. To God belonged every living thing (cf. 41:11), and God alone could say when and how he should die: “In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind” (12:10). He knew that eventually God would bring death upon him (30:23), but the “number of his months” was entirely up to God (14:5).

GOD AN ENEMY?

It has often been said that the Book of Job principally concerns undeserved suffering. But that is not Job’s basic problem. Rather, his main concern is that God, who was once his friend, seems to have turned into his enemy. “Oh, that I were as in the months of old,/ as in the days when God watched over me…as I was in my autumn days,/ when the friendship of God was upon my tent” (29:2,4). And perhaps that is the main concern of every sufferer. Has God become an enemy?

Yet, for all his perplexity, Job will not abandon his faith that his life belongs to God. And so he will not forget that God alone will determine when he should die. He pleads to God to let him die, because that would be evidence that God cares for him and is not his foe (ch. 14). But he will not take his death into his own hands.

THE TEMPTATION OF AUTONOMY

His wife wants him to do that, of course, “Curse God and die,” she advises him (2:9). In other words, deny your relationship with God, become your own autonomous individual, as if you are the master of your own life and death, and go to your grave free of your Maker and Owner. But that Job steadfastly refuses to do. Despite his loss of livelihood and health, deprived of all meaning for his living and suffering, Job still is a man who will not forget that his life is God’s, not his own.

The comfort that Job finally receives from God in the Creator’s speech out of the whirlwind (chs. 38-41) is that God cares for Job as he cares for all of his creation. God has not abandoned him, but comes to him and speaks to him. And Job, because he will not deny his relationship with his Maker, hears God tell the three friends, “You have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (42:7) Job’s faith is vindicated. His life and death lie solely in God’s hands. And God is and will always be his friend.

Perhaps the Book of Job is one we should study and its message one all persons should absorb in this time of abortion, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. We do not own ourselves or others, born or unborn, young or aged, not even when we are suffering. God alone is the Lord of our lives, and all lives, and God alone can command life or death.

What does God Want?

2010-12-04T15:15:00.001-08:00

SOURCE: Achtemeier, Elizabeth. “What Does God Want?” Presbyterian Pro-Life News. Spring/Summer 2001

What does God want? We all know that’s a crucial question, don’t we? It’s not what someone else wants of us, and it’s not what we want, but want does God want?—that God, in whose image we are created and to whom we are therefore always responsible. Finally, we are held accountable for saying and doing what our Creator wants.

THE URGE TOWARD LIFE

Charles Williams wrote in his novel, War in Heaven, that “in the whole world of being, everything hastens toward its doom,” and I suppose that is true if you leave out God. But when I look around me, and when I read the scriptures, I find everything hastening, struggling, pushing out toward life. The white potatoes in my vegetable bin seem determined to send out new shoots. The oak tree down the block lifts up a sidewalk to make room for its root. The catbird in the holly bush chases off any crow threatening its eggs. And the grass grows in my flower beds, despite every season’s weeding. All of nature pushes toward life, and finds it, against incredible odds. Apparently the Creator has inbred that life-urge into the very structure of the universe.

But it’s the same with human beings, isn’t it? We sometimes wonder just why we are here. But God had this urge toward life, you see, and so a billion Chinese and Mrs. Jones and you and I all came squalling out of the womb. And God has gone to incredible lengths to protect us all. He fought a Pharaoh to release our forbearers from the mudpits of Egypt. He provided them water from a rock and manna from the skies and a home to live in. He furnished a never-failing cruse of oil for a poor widow and her son. He poured out his wrath on idle rich who would starve or enslave the poor. He censored judges who would give their verdicts for bribes. And he himself carried, protected, guided, forgave, wept through the centuries to keep his people alive and intact as his adopted children.

THE FOSTERING OF LIFE

Constantly that God gave commandments to foster the life of his creation. Give your cattle a day of rest, he commanded, and help them when they fall into a hole, even if you are supposed to do no work on the Sabbath. Don’t take a mother bird sitting on her eggs, if you must eat the eggs. Don’t go removing the boundary markers on your neighbor’s plot of land. Everywhere, everywhere, protect my creation, foster like do not kill. And if there are helpless among you—the widows, the orphans, the aliens—treat them as one of your own and as I your Lord have treated you. Because finally, you see, I want all to have life and to have it abundantly.

THE FINAL FLESHLY BESTOWED

All of that becomes flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, doesn’t it? Wherever he goes, he is constantly bestowing abundant life. A man blind from youth is given back his sight. A lame man who can’t reach the healing waters of Bethzatha is enabled to walk. A multitude of hungry followers is fed from five loaves and two little fish. A woman who has exhausted the doctor’s treatment of her bleeding is given mysterious health. A group of children, spurned by most, is welcomed into Jesus’ arms and blessing

Indeed, so adamant is God to give abundant life to us all that he will not let our offenses against him cut us off from himself. He is the sole Source of life, the fountainhead of living waters, the One who gives breath and life to every creature on this planet. And were we to lose our relation with him, we would surely die forever. But God will have none of it, “I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,” he avows, even when we seem determined to die. And so he himself absorbs our sin into his own loving Being, into the incarnate Person of his Son. And he dies the death that our human evil would bring upon us all.

But that too is not the end of God’s will toward life, is it, because death is not ever the end of God’s will for his creation? Instead, he deals death its final blow in the resurrection of his Son, and by that act you and I and all persons are granted the possibility of life through faith, not only here and now, but to all eternity in company with our Lord.

God wills life for all. God wants life. And if that is what our God wants, then who are we to defy him, either to snuff out the growing life in the womb or at the end of earthly years?

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Nonviolence Pledge"

2010-10-16T21:28:00.000-07:00

Source: MLK and the "Progressive Hunter" - SojoMail 10.14.10
Keywords:

As you prepare to march, meditate on the life and teachings of Jesus.
Remember the nonviolent movement seeks justice and reconciliation -- not victory.
Walk and talk in the manner of love; for God is love.
Pray daily to be used by God that all men and women might be free.
Sacrifice personal wishes that all might be free.
Observe with friends and foes the ordinary rules of courtesy.
Perform regular service for others and the world.
Refrain from violence of fist, tongue, and heart.
Strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.
Follow the directions of the movement leaders and of the captains on demonstrations.

King clearly connects the violence of the tongue, fist, and heart. Walking and talking in the manner of love is required.

I Just Make the Policy

2010-08-28T12:37:00.000-07:00

Source: "Isn't this Upside Down?" by Rev. Linda Hollies. Day 1. July 5, 1998 http://day1.org/780-isnt_this_upside_down
Scripture: Galatians 6:7-10
Keyword:

Once upon a time, a hippo fell in love with a butterfly. The hippo was enchanted and wanted a deeper relationship. So, the hippo went to visit the wise old owl and asked how this relationship might blossom and grow. For a minute or two, the owl was quiet. Then, the owl said to the hippo, "Become a butterfly." The hippo stood there for awhile trying to comprehend how to become a butterfly. Finally, the hippo took off running and made an heroic attempt to fly. Of course, there was this big boom and some embarrassment as the hippo got up and returned to the owl, "You made a fool of me," said the hippo. "I tried to become a butterfly and failed. What am I to do now?" The wise old owl was quiet, but eventually spoke to the waiting hippo. "I make policy. It's up to you to enforce it."

Worth More than a College Education

2010-06-11T13:37:00.000-07:00

QUOTE:

"A thorough knowledge of the Bible is more important than a college education."

--Theodore Roosevelt

"Ash Wednesday" by T.S. Eliot

2010-06-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

Source: 'Ash-Wednesday', from Collected Poems 1909-1962 by T S Eliot, © T S Eliot 1963, Faber & Faber Limited
Keywords:

"Ash Wednesday"
by TS Eliot

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

II

Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying
Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.
Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of the day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.
At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jagged, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an aged shark.
At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.
Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy
but speak the word only.

IV

Who walked between the violet and the violet
Who walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary's colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs
Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary's colour,
Sovegna vos
Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing
White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.
The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word
But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken
Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew
And after this our exile

V

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice
Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.
O my people.

VI

Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn
Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings
And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth This is the time of tension between dying and birth The place of solitude where three dreams cross Between blue rocks But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away Let the other yew be shaken and reply.
Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.

Millenial Religious Practice

2010-04-30T08:12:00.000-07:00

Source: "Fewer Young Adults Attending Church" from Pastor's Weekly Briefing, April 30, 2010.

Keywords: unchurched, post-modern, secular, religion

According to a new survey by a Christian research firm, a majority of young adults, age 18 to 29, don't pray, don't worship and don't read the Bible.

The research, conducted by LifeWay Christian Resources, revealed that:

Sixty-five percent identify themselves as Christian, while 14 percent say they are atheist or agnostic, 14 percent list no religious preference, and 8 percent claim other religions.
Sixty-five percent rarely or never pray with others, and 38 percent almost never pray by themselves either.
Sixty-five percent rarely or never attend worship services.
Sixty-seven percent don't read the Bible or sacred texts.
Seventy-two percent say they're "really more spiritual than religious."
Many are unsure Jesus is the only path to heaven: Half say, yes — half say, no.

"We have dumbed down what it means to be part of the church so much that it means almost nothing, even to people who already say they are part of the church," says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources.

The survey was based on telephone interviews in August 2009 with 1,200 18-to-29-year-olds. The study forms the basis for the upcoming book, "The Millennials: Connecting to America's Largest Generation," by Dr. Thom Rainer and Jess Rainer.

Connected to Jesus

2010-04-30T08:09:00.000-07:00

Source: "Jesus Speaks Back" from Pastor's Weekly Briefing, April 30, 2010.

Keywords:

A majority of Americans believe that Jesus speaks back to them in two-way communication, according to results from a new Barna Group^® survey. The study was conducted among a random sample of 2,002 U.S. adults.

While an overwhelming majority of Americans claim to pray during a typical week (more than 80%), the results point out that a majority also believes that Jesus speaks back to them. Overall, 38 percent said they are "completely certain" that Jesus speaks to them in ways that are personal and relevant to their circumstances. An additional 21 percent said they are "somewhat certain" that He does so, while 10 percent contend that Jesus speaks to them, but they were not as sure about that communication. Eight percent did not know if Jesus Christ speaks to them. In total, less than one-quarter of all adults (23%) stated that Jesus does not speak to them.

According to Americans, Jesus speaks to them in multi-faceted ways. At least one out of every six adults contends that He communicates with them in the following manner:

By influencing or connecting directly with their mind, emotions or feelings (52%).
Through the content of a Bible passage they read or which was read to them (41%).
By providing a sign (36%).
Through sermon or teaching content concerning their immediate situation or need (34%).
Through miraculous or inexplicable circumstances or outcomes (31%).
Through words spoken to them by someone else who was speaking for God (31%).
Through a passage they read in a book other than the Bible (18%).
Through an audible voice or whisper that they could hear (16%).

Click here to view the full report from Barna.

Cowboy Code

2010-03-18T15:46:00.000-07:00

Source: The Pastor's Weekly Briefing, March 19, 2010
Keyword: Ten Commandments, ethics, virtue

Wyoming's Code of BehaviorWyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal recently signed into law the state's official code of behavior. The legislation, sponsored by state senator Jim Anderson, was adapted from Jim Owen's book, Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn From the Code of the West. Wyoming is the first state to define values its residents are to pursue encoded in a set of quidelines.

The guidelines are: 1) Live each day with courage; 2) Take pride in your work; 3) Always finish what you start; 4) Do what has to be done; 5) Be tough, but fair; 6) When you make a promise, keep it; 7) Ride for the brand; 8) Talk less and say more; 9) Remember that some things aren't for sale; 10) Know where to draw the line.

Using the guidelines, a four-week course has been adapted to help high school students build the personal characteristics needed to achieve success in life. [WorldNetDaily.com]

Picture of God

2010-02-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

Keyword:

A teacher asks a class of kindergarteners to draw a picture. The class gets to work. The teacher walks around the class and stops at little Susie's desk. The teacher asks, "Susie, what are you drawing?" Susie responds, "A picture of God." The teacher says, "But Susie, no one knows what God looks like." Susie says, "They will in a minute."

Reconciling Power of Food

2010-02-14T12:41:00.000-08:00

Source: "Oprah's Chef Brings Charm to the Table" by Emily Schwab.
Keyword: Communion, Lord's Table, Eucharist,

Art Smith is Oprah's personal chef and a rotating judge on Iron Chef America. On the February 14, 2010 edition of Fox News Sunday, Art Smith discussed briefly the reconciling power of food. Wallace said that he couldn't serve Art's food at the show because the guests would all get along.

From the Boston.com article, Art Smith says,

"Most people don't get along, 'cus they don't spend enough time at the table together."

T-Shirt Theology

2010-01-17T17:52:00.000-08:00

Keyword: identity, thou, Buber

I recently saw someone wearing a t-shirt. On the front of it was printed Psalm 139:14, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” On the back of the t-shirt was printed in all capitols, "I AM NOT AN IT."

The Humble Improve

2010-01-17T17:33:00.000-08:00

Source: "What Humility Looks Like", Expioleadership

Keyword:

Several years ago, I was sipping my grande coffee and contemplating a difficult situation at work when I noticed three words on the back of my cup: "The humble improve" - Wynton Marsalis. Wow! Three words that sum up why humility is key to success.

I'm not a brain surgeon, but I can remember three words. Jazz fan or not you're probably familiar with Pulitzer Prize-winning trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis. In his book, "To a Young Jazz Musician: Letters from the Road," Marsalis mentors a young musician named Anthony through a series of letters.

In one letter, Marsalis writes about the "The Humble Self": "You can tell when someone is truly humble, because they consistently observe and listen, the humble improve. They don't assume, 'I know the way.' Humility engenders learning because it beats back the arrogance that puts blinders on. It leaves you open for truths to reveal themselves."

Forbidden Planet

2010-01-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

Source: "Illustrations 10-17-2007" from freshministry.org. Submitted by Tom Barber
"Forbidden Planet" (1956) by MGM

Long before actor Leslie Nielsen became famous for his comedy movies such as Airplane and The Naked Gun, he played the commander of a space ship in the classic science fiction movie, Forbidden Planet. Sent to investigate the fate of a previous expedition to the planet, Nielsen and his crew find only two survivors of the previous expedition, Dr. Morbius and his daughter Altaira. Dr. Morbius discovered the planet had once been inhabited by the Krell, a super-intelligent race. The Krell had developed a vast machine that could provide anything that an individual Krell could desire. It was controlled by the thoughts of the person. Dr. Morbius was able to learn how to utilize the machine to some extent. But what Dr. Morbius and the Krell did not take into consideration was the subconscious: What Dr. Morbius called the “mindless primitive”. It was the base elements of the subconscious such as envy, greed, and hate that brought about the destruction of the Krell civilization and eventually Dr. Morbius. Towards the end of the movie, Dr. Morbius realizes that it was his own subconscious mind that was controlling the “monster” that had been attacking the crew of the spaceship and was now threatening Leslie Nielsen’s character and Morbius’ daughter Altaira. He speaks the following line:

“Dr. Edward Morbius: Guilty! Guilty! My evil self is at that door, and I have no power to stop it!”

We would probably call the “mindless primitive” our sin nature. Morbius realized that no matter how intelligent or how technologically advanced; people still have the basic nature to sin. To paraphrase the apostle Paul, sin makes us do what we don’t want to do and not do what we want to do. Like Morbius, we are not able to control or stop our sin nature by our own power. We can only accomplish some measure of control by the grace and power of Jesus Christ working thought the Holy Spirit. It’s not until we are in Heaven that we will be totally sin-free.

As the movie comes to a close, the planet is destroyed by the explosion of the Krell machine as the crew of the spaceship and Altaira watch. Leslie Nielsen’s character sums it all up with this statement to Altaira:

“Commander John J. Adams: Alta, about a million years from now the human race will have crawled up to where the Krell stood in their great moment of triumph and tragedy. And your father's name will shine again like a beacon in the galaxy. It's true, it will remind us that we are, after all, not God.”

Bridge to Terebithia

2010-01-17T16:35:00.000-08:00

Source: "Illustrations 7-10-2007" from www.freshministry.org;
"Bridge to Terebitha" 55:52- 56:46

Keywords: faith

Jess Aarons struggles to fit in at school. He is a talented artist but school bullies, his home situation, and other concerns cause him to keep his gifts to himself. Everything changes when Jess meets Leslie Burke, the new girl. Leslie is a gifted storyteller and challenges Jess to see a more colorful world beyond the dull tones of day- to-day existence. Together they create an imaginary world where they rule and successfully battle the Dark master and his creatures. Leslie challenges Jess’s small view of God.

She encourages him to use the eyes of faith to see beyond a God waiting to punish disobedient sinners, and instead by faith see a Loving Creator who has given people a wonderful world in which to live, and enjoy a relationship with Himself and others.

Jess, Leslie and Jess’s sister Maybelle are riding home from church in the back of a pickup. Leslie looks at Jess and says, “I’m really glad I came. That whole Jesus thing, it’s really interesting isn’t it?” As Jess reflects on the question, Maybelle says, “It’s not interesting, it’s scary! It’s nailing holes through your hands.” Then Maybelle adds, “It’s cause we’re all vile sinners. God made Jesus die.” Leslie looks at Jess who looks more confused and asks, “Do you really think that’s true?” Jess ponders her question and offers, “It’s in the Bible isn’t it?”

Leslie questions Jess’s assumptions stating, “You have to believe it and you HATE it.
I don’t have to believe it, and I think it’s beautiful.” Maybelle tells Leslie, “You’ve got to believe in the Bible. If you don’t God will damn you to hell when you die.”

With a slight smile Leslie asks, “How? Where did you hear that?” Maybelle turns to Jess for support and asks, “That’s right huh, Jess. God damns you to hell if you don’t believe in the Bible.” Jess sounds less sure of himself, but responds, “I think so.” Leslie says, “Well I don’t think so. I seriously do no think God goes around damning people to hell. He’s too busy running all this!” she exclaims spreading her arms wide.

Goodbye Mom

2010-01-17T16:27:00.000-08:00

Source: Floating around the internet
Keywords:

A young man shopping in a supermarket noticed a little old lady following him around. If he stopped, she stopped. Furthermore she kept staring at him.

She finally overtook him at the checkout, And she turned to him and said, "I hope I haven't made you feel ill at ease; it's just that you look so much like my late son."

He answered, "That's okay."

"I know it's silly, but if you'd call out "Goodbye, Mom" as I leave the store, It would make me feel so happy."

She then went through the checkout, And as she was on her way out of the store, The man called out, "Goodbye, Mom."

The little old lady waved, and smiled back at him.

Pleased that he had brought a little sunshine Into someone's day, he went to pay for his groceries.

"That comes to $121.85," said the clerk.

"How come so much ... I only bought 5 items.."

The clerk replied, "Yeah, but your Mother said that you'd be paying for her things, too."

Charles Schultz and Christianity

2010-01-15T11:20:00.001-08:00

Interesting article on Charles Schultz and Christianity...

http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/csrpl/RINVol3No2/charles_schulz.htm

Christmas without Meaning

2010-01-15T11:16:00.000-08:00

Source:
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2007/12/the-real-meanin.html
http://www.adventconspiracy.org/what/

Keywords:

Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion, told The New York Times that he of all people celebrates Christmas. "I detest Jingle Bells, White Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the obscene spending bonanza that nowadays seems to occupy not just December, but November and much of October, too," he said. Even so, he added, "so divorced has Christmas become from religion that I find no necessity to bother with euphemisms such as, 'Happy holiday season.' "