tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64928614231074662732024-02-19T06:07:12.142-05:00Simply CharityBlog on love, and God, mostly. Devotional musings highlights religious and philosophical questions, and practical theology. Since this is about God, no subject too difficult to talk about, though many are too superficial to be part of the conversation. A parallel blog exists at: sundowniest.wordpress.com.PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.comBlogger307125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-49293494130073968412023-02-22T11:48:00.001-05:002023-02-22T11:48:54.666-05:00poetry as power Poem 1<div><br></div><div><p><strong>“Staying Power” </strong><br>by <strong>Jeanne Murray Walker</strong></p><p><em>In appreciation of Maxim Gorky at the International Convention of Atheists, 1929</em></p><p>Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts<br>outside to the yard and question the sky,<br>longing to have the fight settled, thinking<br>I can't go on like this, and finally I say</p><p>all right, it is improbable, all right, there<br>is no God. And then as if I'm focusing<br>a magnifying glass on dry leaves, God blazes up.<br>It's the attention, maybe, to what isn't there</p><p>that makes the emptiness flare like a forest fire<br>until I have to spend the afternoon dragging<br>the hose to put the smoldering thing out.<br>Even on an ordinary day when a friend calls,</p><p>tells me they've found melanoma,<br>complains that the hospital is cold, I say God.<br>God, I say as my heart turns inside out.<br>Pick up any language by the scruff of its neck,</p><p>wipe its face, set it down on the lawn,<br>and I bet it will toddle right into the godfire<br>again, which—though they say it doesn't<br>exist—can send you straight to the burn unit.</p><p>Oh, we have only so many words to think with.<br>Say God's not fire, say anything, say God's<br>a phone, maybe. You know you didn't order a phone,<br>but there it is. It rings. You don't know who it could be.</p><p>You don't want to talk, so you pull out<br>the plug. It rings. You smash it with a hammer<br>till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbery<br>metal bits. It rings again. You pick it up</p><p> and a voice you love whispers hello.</p></div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-9347707642605146052013-11-02T07:37:00.002-04:002013-11-16T20:28:46.399-05:00Don't Be Like Tech Support to Me!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;">I take care of my own tech problems but occasionally I call tech support. Once I’m outed as a middle-aged woman, I’m always pigeon-holed. Invariably I dash tech support’s preconceived ideas about middle-aged women.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Jesus has perpetual appeal in this; he always dashes preconceived notions of who he should be and how he should act. The Pharisees embroiled him in debate but it took a sharp turn when Jesus responded with a category-smashing, liberating statement for humanity: “… are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man's whole body well? <b>Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.</b>” (John 7:23b, 24).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">When asked “where I am” on the complementarian /egalitarian debate in the church, though I’m weary of the topic, my conscience won’t let me ignore it. Through my brushes with male chauvinistic attitude (from both genders) and with the power-hungry, I’m aware that churches persist in judging by appearances and not with right judgment. I’m convinced the church needs <i>every </i>adult, male or female, who is willing and qualified as teacher or church leader. This reawakens me to the urgency of “smashing categories."
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Why now?</i> The problem is the numbers: they don’t lie. Young women and men believe church is irrelevant to any world they occupy. They are right. Women are allowed to do anything, until they walk into church (granted, not all churches). Young women tell me they see the flaws in the “Christian womanhood” model. You'd have to be blind not to: no one can live up to it because it is a <i>fabricated </i>ideal.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Galatians 3:28 says “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The church has dealt with the Jewish/ Gentile rift, and it no longer supports slavery. Yet, females are still barred from particular church roles (even though the Bible is shot through with women leaders such as judges, prophets, apostles, and more).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The consequence of barring women is that churches are <b>anachronisms </b>when it comes to women.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">There are two main currents which herd women away from leadership in the church.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Neither of these two currents is a <i>Christian </i>injunction. The church’s health is not benefited when either current is promoted. The currents are often promoted in ignorance, or on a kind of unthinking “auto-pilot,” or a combination of both.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The first current is <i>gender tendency</i>. Churches which make gender tendency prominent submerge individual distinctions. Gender tendencies are either promoted openly or implied as the preferred “way to be.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The second current is that churches <i>fuse </i>(consequently confuse) the early Christian era and culture with the current one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>1) Tendencies (& Abilities)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">There is nothing in scripture to support that idea that God has delegated gifts, vocation, and talents according to gender. More women than men like to cook: this is a tendency. (It happens to be a tendency I lack.) There is <i>nothing </i>scriptural or godly for a church to encourage people to conform to “typical” gender types.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Beyond that, there are also gifts and abilities unique to people. A male chef may be extremely talented: that’s his gifting. It’s how God made him.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">There is nothing holy or humble about keeping your gifts hidden or repressed. Repression takes on expressions—one of which is depression.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">If your love is teaching, you should be able to teach (male or female).
Doing what you’re outfitted to do well is a form of worship: don’t shoehorn yourself in—or stay away from— what you do best.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Whatever your strengths, they should be encouraged by the church. But if not, don’t wait—you just may need to blaze a trail.
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>2) Era & Culture Fusion
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<span style="font-size: small;">A) Cultural Differences</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">It’s unfair to me that in some cultures I’m not called by my first name, but by husband’s first name. It’s also unfair that my husband is treated better than I am. But, while in foreign culture, it becomes my <i>cultural reality.</i> I must accept the non-western culture in its own context on its own terms and accommodate it outside of home.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">However, when I return to my own culture, I would be extremely <i>weird </i>to insist on retaining the foreign culture out of some twisted sense of loyalty.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Similarly, the culture of the 1st century was different from the dominant Western culture; it was different, not better.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The point is simple: To force the culture of a different time and place into our Western culture is both <i>unnecessary </i>and <i>strange</i>. And, it’s lethal for a church to ignore the “local” cultural reality.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">B) Era Differences</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">People don’t change, times do.
My grandmother could kill and pluck a chicken, I never have. That doesn’t make me a better (or worse) person.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Schooling (literacy) and a middle class is relatively new historically. For women, universal schooling is even newer. Today, more American women than men have graduate degrees.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Little wonder we lose our way if we drag standard practices of the early church (which was very superstitious and mainly unschooled) into this century.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">A different era requires different (and changing) demands. When a preacher or a writer fuses the era and culture of the Bible with ours, it’s not warranted, nor right.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>What the Church Most Needs</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Everyone is unique—uniqueness defies stereotyping. Creating a categorical rule from a biblical passage is deleterious, it relegates women to non-people—an anti-Christian perspective. It’s not only wrong but in practice, it is <i>harmful</i>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">People rightly sense that the dominant message regarding women isn’t applicable; to reverse the clock is to live in a fantasy world. Customs are time/ place-specific, and serve society. While customs change, truth doesn’t. Complementarianism is not a truth of Christ. Blocking women from leadership has no basis in truth: this custom no longer fits our society. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">Christians are tired of bridging opposing worlds—to commend one custom <i>outside </i>of church but to uphold its opposite <i>inside</i> the church. Happily, if the church navigates our cultural current, the incongruity can be easily put to rights.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">It’s a win-win for the church: it can only be strengthened with additional good, godly collaborators of <i>any </i>gender. When we bring out the best in each other, male, female, young and old, in the resultant “rising tide, all boats are lifted.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">I have long since finished with making anyone an idol. My life is in Christ, the Head of the Body, the Eternal Lord. Only Christ is life-invigorating, liberating and category-smashing. </span></div>
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PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-9744631212247231152013-06-04T06:00:00.002-04:002015-12-28T10:08:29.980-05:00Meeting Plato & Shakespeare at Breakfast<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: small;">I find the phrase “vocation is mission” satisfyingly descriptive. What it means is that which I do every day is my personal mission. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">We are continuously changing people in an ever-changing world and we draw on tried-and-true instruments to form new experiences and things for us, and for people around us. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">That’s the inventive/creative power we have. I love the creative work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. NT Wright said well,<br /><br />“Those in whom the Spirit comes to live are God’s new Temple. They are… places where heaven and earth meet.” -<i>Simply Christian</i><br /><br />The Holy Spirit works with us: He doesn’t come through our door with a signboard announcing his Presence, nor with a Tweet.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />If you do a bit of spiritual self-care, rather like getting ready for the day for work, it may amaze you later on at creative God can be in your life. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">Perhaps you might surprise me someday when I come down to breakfast and ‘meet another Shakespeare.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>Plato has told you a truth; but Plato is dead. <br />Shakespeare has startled you with an image; but Shakespeare will not startle you with any more. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><br />But, imagine what it would be to live with such men still living,<br />to know that Plato might break out with an original lecture tomorrow or <br />that at any moment Shakespeare might shatter everything with a single song. </b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><br />The man who lives in contact with what he believes to be a living Church <br />is a man always expecting to meet <br />Plato and Shakespeare tomorrow at breakfast.</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b></b><br /> - G K Chesterton, <i>Orthodoxy</i></span></div>
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PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-69559667980050130722013-05-14T06:40:00.000-04:002013-05-14T07:06:02.075-04:00On Women: Don’t Be Like Tech Support with Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<b>In the Church of Jesus Christ there can and should be no non-theologians. – Karl Barth<i></i></b><br />
I can take care of my own tech problems–most of the time. Now and then I have to ask customer service for help. Once they know I’m a woman, I feel like a three-year old: half of my conversation is getting them not to pigeon-hole me. Sadly, in some churches I get the same sense communicated. I feel like texting the 32-year old in the pulpit who is speaking down to women: <i>“I have been studying the Bible, and I’ve been devoted to spiritual disciplines for more than 40 years. Right now I’m using some of the best theologians and bible studies.”</i><br />
On this note, someone recently asked “where I was” on the complementarian /egalitarian debate in the church. I’ve read both sides and the scriptures in context, out of context, and upside down and I think it’s silly. First, I’m not that political (small "p"). Mostly, it’s a distraction from discipleship and evangelism. As Christ’s Body we have a mission to do–in this era that necessarily involves some women. And <i>some </i>of those women will be teaching men.<br />
The thought that God has segmented the gifts according to gender is unsupported in scripture and in the real life. Of course there may be tendencies, but tendencies don’t apply to all people. Some women hate/are scared to read this—no worries: what God has not equipped you for He does not ask you to do. Others react as if the entire Bible were questioned (which it is not). Scripturally there is support for women: women are judges, prophets, apostles—which makes them teachers. But notice, women make up the <i>minority </i>of these. And that speaks to two separate things: tendencies and cultural context of that era.<br />
What should concern the church is <i>quality</i>: where are the visionaries? the humble, Spirit-led, God-obsessed ones? Yes, many are in the pulpit. But excluded is the woman who might qualify, and yet the dullard of a man who holds an unsacramental view of the church, the world, women and work is acceptable. This, I do not see as a God-ordained decision.<br />
Might we ask ourselves honest God-honoring questions with regard to genders in the church structure: Do we unthinkingly following an all-male quota system, rather than prayerfully fitting the churches with the best for the pulpit? Can we answer the question is it okay to suppress a person from growth by barring her from teaching a mixed adult Sunday School?<br />
Our theology informs our thinking—or ought to. We should at least dare to ask <b>questions of depth</b>: What is our underlying view of women and girls <i>in general</i> if the church cherishes solely-by-males in all contexts stand with regards to teaching? What about the people who people threaten to quit the church if a woman teaches—and throw a tantrum. So, do we fear the anger of people so much? Is this our problem, or Christ's?<br />
I have heard it said (or insinuated) that a man could not learn from a woman. Of course if the man is arrogant, then this is true—you can’t be taught if you’re not receptive.<br />
Are we afraid of competition (in a bad sense)? Perhaps this fear in us should be treated. Or, is the question a harder one to face: are we not able to trust our Lord in this; He who makes us and gives all gifts and callings? (We aren’t too good at trust, if we’re honest with ourselves.)<br />
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I worry that the church is putting out its own eyes when it quashes the God-given gifts and talents of females in the churches. Again, in my experience, <i>most </i>women do not wish or have the time to be preachers or theologians. Yet, there are those <i>few </i>women who have a mind to serve and are ready and willing—but they will be lost to the ages if the church in the West continues as it is.<br />
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Can we be honest about who the church is for: it should be for and about <b>Christ</b>. When it is about Him, that is, when the members see Christ as the Only One, the Head of the Body, then (in this context) the calling to teach in a member is energized by the Spirit of Christ. There is no question about gender or background – the Spirit of Christ doesn’t require a “type.” In the rarefied air of the love of the Body of Christ the outcome is <i>beautiful, unforced, and a normal</i>: discipleship occurs, and evangelism happens. I know, I’ve been there.<br />
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However, the beautiful unfolding of these revolutionary moments cannot withstand the force of the hands of a board or committee who stick to their notes and pull the plug.<br />
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Let’s reflect. It might be <b>painful, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, Church</b>.
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<b>“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for a bird to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”</b>– CS Lewis<br />
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<i>(Lest you think I dislike men, it’s not true. My Lord is a man; some of my favorite pastors and theologians are men. I prefer working with men, I was raised by a great father, have a husband of 37 years who is gold, grew up with wonderful brothers, and have the best sons.)</i>
-Charity Johnson</div>
PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-34114061135888017582012-06-27T06:42:00.001-04:002012-06-27T06:42:46.796-04:00Being There...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let no thought come to my heart,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Let no ruffle come to my spirit,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that is hurtful to my poor body
this night,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nor ill for my soul at the hour
of my death-</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">but may You Yourself, O God of life,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">be at my breast, be at my back,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">You to me as a star, You to me a guide,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;">from my life's beginning to my life's closing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><o:p>A Celtic prayer (partial)</o:p></span></div>
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</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-59706781843636412512012-03-15T11:49:00.000-04:002012-03-15T11:49:44.958-04:00Thoughts on Low Light<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I have read and contemplated much about the reason for Lent: I think Donne's poem puts it most succinctly. There are periods where we must strip off the wallpaper which garnishes our lives and get down to some serious internal housecleaning. In this poem (which is only partial), Donne reflects on the loss of his land and the gain he anticipates from departing all that ties him--and on what he anticipates to gain by going out of sight.
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A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany (partial)<br />
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I sacrifice this land unto thee,
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And all whom I loved there, and who loved me;
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When I have put our seas twixt them and me,
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Put thou thy sea betwixt my sins and thee.
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As the trees sap doth seek the root below
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In winter, in my winter now I go,
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Where none but thee, the Eternal root<br />
Of true Love I may know.<br />
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Seale then this bill of my Divorce to All,<br />
On whom those fainter beams of love did fall;
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Marry those loves, which in youth scattered be
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On Fame, Wit, Hopes (false mistresses) to Thee.
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Churches are best for Prayer, that have least light:
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to see God only, I go out of sight:
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And to escape stormy days, <br />
I choose
An Everlasting night.<br />
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===========================<br />
from A Hymne to Christ, at the Authors last going into Germany (partial)
by John Donne
</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-55549547415369369142012-02-27T18:24:00.000-05:002012-02-27T18:24:05.996-05:00Barren Clay by Michelangelo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My unassisted heart is barren clay,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That of its native self can nothing feed:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">OF good and pious works thou art the seed,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">That quickens only where thou sayest it may:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Unless though show to use thine own true way</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead.</span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em>Michelangelo</em> Buonarroti (yes, he wrote poetry, too)<br />
(translated by William Wordsworth)</span></li>
</ul><br />
</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-299825963201772742012-02-23T10:48:00.002-05:002015-12-17T12:25:50.366-05:00More Things Are Wrought By Prayer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<div style="line-height: 14.25pt;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There are those scoffers and diminishers of prayer. A scoffer would say it doesn't work, and a diminisher tells you, "all I can do is pray" (betraying a very wrong view of prayer!). Good true prayer "works"-- the scoffers have no studies to tell them that it does - or does not (which is what they claim they want); diminishers don't seem to realize that prayer is 1) the <strong><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "serif";">best</span></strong> and first thing to do for the person 2) gives light/guidance for action. </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Lacking prayer, what are we doing but "nourishing a blind life within the brain..."?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"More Things Are Wrought By Prayer" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">More things are wrought by prayer </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Than this world dreams of. </span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Wherefore let thy voice</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Rise like a fountain for me night and day.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For what are men better than sheep or goats,</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">That nourish a blind life within the brain,</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Both for themselves and those who call them friend.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For so the whole round earth is every way</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">—by Alfred, Lord Tennyson</span><br />
<br /></div>
</div>
PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-75267571243177349542012-02-22T18:45:00.000-05:002012-02-22T18:45:21.677-05:00His Hands, His Heart<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">We speak much about the hands of Jesus Christ at the time of his crucifixion, but I would also like to think about His Hands as we begin the Lenten season. The hands of God are sacrificial loving hands because He is both sacrificial and loving towards us. The poem below uses a phrase taken from Psalm 31, verse 15. If you read the psalm, you might recognize how many times it is quoted in the gospels.<br />
<br />
<b>My Times Are In Thy Hand </b><br />
<br />
“My times are in thy hand”;<br />
My God, I wish them there;<br />
My life, my friends, my soul, I leave<br />
Entirely to thy care.<br />
<br />
“My times are in thy hand”;<br />
Why should I doubt or fear?<br />
My Father’s hand will never cause<br />
His child a needless tear.<br />
<br />
“My times are in thy hand,”<br />
Jesus, the crucified!<br />
The hand my cruel sins had pierced<br />
Is now my guard and guide.<br />
<br />
“My times are in thy hand”;<br />
I’ll always trust in thee;<br />
And, after death, at thy right hand<br />
I shall forever be.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>by William F. Lloyd</li>
</ul><b>Psalm 31</b> (complete)<br />
In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness.<br />
Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me.<br />
For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me.<br />
Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength.<br />
Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.<br />
I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the LORD.<br />
I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities;<br />
And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.<br />
Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: mine eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.<br />
For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.<br />
I was a reproach among all mine enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.<br />
I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.<br />
For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.<br />
But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God.<br />
<b>My times are in thy hand: </b>deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.<br />
Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies’ sake.<br />
Let me not be ashamed, O LORD; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.<br />
Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.<br />
Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee; which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!<br />
Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.<br />
Blessed be the LORD: for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness in a strong city.<br />
For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee.<br />
O love the LORD, all ye his saints: for the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer.<br />
Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-24194902014190009322012-02-21T18:12:00.000-05:002012-02-21T18:12:59.541-05:00Leaping Forward By Going Backwards<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">I was reading an article that said we are in the midst of a sea change (<em>hmmm…that’s been our continual state, hasn’t it</em>?). The article suggested that that our current woes stem in the West stem from three causes: the “disestablishment” of legal authority in the 18th century, the subsequent disestablishment of civic authority in the 19th century, followed by the disestablishment of cultural authority in the 20th century. While this presents an interesting socio-political framework for thinking about systems, cultures and mores, it’s a sociological perspective, a filter. Perspectives are ways to look at things, but that’s it.<br />
The cause of our woes is that from our origins, we’ve had sin problem at the root. We are off-track when we begin to think we can effectively treat our socio-political problems simply because we’ve identified them: identifying them is good but don’t confuse that with the rectifying the problem. Too we often we simply treat our toothache but not our rotten tooth so the pain always returns and never leaves us. I do believe while we can make progress (or <em>change</em>), but we mustn’t forget that we cannot fix the big root problem: our teeth are slowly rotting. Still, I agree with CS Lewis that progress can be accomplished, yet only if we start at the right end. Lewis stated that any progress required a stable core, and for that we need the Permanent–for the permanent is the root from which change takes place. Lewis asserted that with the changing demands of culture on morality and ethics, it is only an unchanging system of thoughts and values that can accommodate the continual increase in knowledge:<br />
“A great Christian statesman [politician],considering the morality of a measure which will affect millions of lives, and which involves economic, geographical and political considerations of the utmost complexity, is in a different position from a boy first learning that one must not cheat or tell lies, or hurt innocent people.<br />
But only in so far as that first knowledge of the great moral platitudes survives unimpaired in the statesman will his deliberation be moral at all.<br />
[But] if that goes, then there has been no progress, but only mere change.<br />
…change is not progress unless the core remains unchanged. A small oak grows into a big oak: if it become a beech [tree] that would not be growth, but mere change.”<br />
It’s not possible to make effective change unless we know what to change—and we cannot know that until we understand what is intrinsically critical, necessary, and permanent to our existence <em>prior</em> enacting a change.<br />
More simply put, without goal you can’t know where you should go; without a budget, you don’t know how much you can spend before going broke.<br />
Just imagine the vagaries of the weather from one week to the next, or one year to the next—its affect on crops, roads, and even your attitude. But then, imagine that you awaken one day and to find that all that is critically necessary to life, (the permanent), let’s say, the sun and the moon, are obliterated. At this moment the day’s weather would be your least concern—you’d find yourself in a science-fiction horror film!<br />
“…there is a great difference between counting apples and arriving at the mathematical formulae of modern physics. But the multiplication table is used in both and does not grow out of date.” Lewis elaborated:<br />
“The possibility of progress demands that there should be an unchanging element. New bottles for new wine, by all means, but not new palates, throats and stomachs, for that would not be for us, ‘’wine” at all. …we find this sort of unchanging element in the simple rules of mathematics. I would add to these the primary principles of morality. And I would also add the fundamental doctrines of Christianity.<br />
To put it in more technical language, the positive historical statements made by Christianity have the power, elsewhere found chiefly in formal principles, of receiving without intrinsic change, the increasing complexity of meaning which increasing knowledge puts into them.”<br />
The truth and the necessity about Christ’s coming, the truth and necessity of His sacrifice, our redemption, and His transformative work in his disciples in so many people throughout millennia and cultures supports Lewis’ assertion in practice.<br />
And, no, the world hasn’t progressed by accident, evolution, or government. When it has “progressed,” it has been because of the long, mostly laborious efforts of people who’ve grasped the big, permanent truths. Love chains us and binds us to seek improvement for our families and for others. GK Chesterton asserted: “Love is not blind; that is the last thing that it is. Love is bound; and the more it is bound the less it is blind.”<br />
I have found no more biblical, no more permanent Christian “system” than the Creed. The Creed is only so because it is a comprehensive succinct expression of biblical truth of God, His work past, present and future, both in the world and in me. Stamped throughout out the Creed are expressions not simply of historical fact or theological assertions, but of supernatural and sacrificial love. It is out of the “permanent and fundamental principles” of faith that our lives can grow and bend as the seasons, times, cultures and environments. I can grow and change without losing my original God-ordained purpose, placement and end.<br />
If you’re not familiar with a Christian creed, such as the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, here it is. And for readers unfamiliar with the biblical handprints all over the creed, I have placed some recommended scriptures after it. (The Apostles Creed is shorter, than the Nicene Creed).<br />
<br />
Nicene Creed::<br />
“We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.<br />
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,<br />
eternally begotten of the Father,<br />
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,<br />
begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father.<br />
Through him all things were made.<br />
For us and for our salvation He came down from heaven:<br />
by the power of the Holy Spirit He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,<br />
and was made man.<br />
For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate;<br />
He suffered death and was buried.<br />
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;<br />
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.<br />
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,<br />
and His kingdom will have no end.<br />
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.<br />
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.<br />
He has spoken through the Prophets.<br />
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.<br />
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.<br />
We look for the resurrection of the dead,<br />
and the life of the world to come. Amen.”<br />
<br />
Deuteronomy 6:4, II Peter 1:17, Matthew 6:9 Job 4:17, 35:10, Isaiah 17:7, 54:5, Genesis1:1 Psalms 104:5, Jeremiah 51:15, Psalms 89:11-12, Amos 4:13, Revelation 3:5, Colossians 1:16, Ephesians 4:5,Romans 1:7, 5:1, I Corinthians 1:2, 6:11, II Corinthians. 1:2, 8:9, Galatians1:3, 6:14, Ephesians 1:2, 3:11, Philippians 1:2, 3:20, Colossians 1:3, 2:6, I Thessalonians 1:1, 5:9, II Thessalonians 1:1, 2:14, I Timothy 6:3, 14, I Timothy 1:2, Philemon 1:3, 25, Hebrews 13:20, James 1:1, 2:1, I Peter 1:3,3:15, II Peter 1:8, 14, Jude 17, 21, Revelation 22:20-21, John 1:18, Matthew3:17, John 3:16, Hebrews 1:5, John 1:1, Colossians 1:17, 1 John 1:1, Hebrews1:5, Micah 5:2, John 1:18, 17:5, John 10:30, John 14:9, I Corinthians 8:6,Colossians 1:16, Matthew 20:28, John 10:10 b, Matthew 1:21, Luke 19:10, Romans10:6, Ephesians 4:10, Colossians 2:9, Matthew 1:18, Luke 1:34-35, John 1:14,Matthew 20:19, John 19:18, Romans 5:6, 8, II Corinthians 13:4, Romans 5:8, I Corinthians. 5:15, Matthew 27:2, 26, I Timothy 6:13, I Peter 2:21, Hebrews 2:10, Mark 15:46, I Corinthians 15:4, Matthew 27:63, Matthew 28:1, I Corinthians 15:4, Mark 16:6,II Timothy 2:8, Psalms 16:10, Luke 24:25-27, I Corinthians 15:4, Luke 24:51,Acts 1:9, Mark 16:19, Acts 1:11, Psalms110:1, Ephesians 1: 20, Matthew 26:64, Hebrews 1:3, John 14:3, I Thessalonians4:16, Matthew 16:27, 24:30, 25:31, 26:64, Mark 8:38, Colossians 3:4, Matthew25:3146,Acts 10:42, 1 Peter 4:5, John 18:36, II Timothy 4:1, 18, Luke 1:33,Revelation 11:15, Psalms 145:13, Matthew 28:19, Acts 13:2, II Corinthians 3:17,John 6:63, Romans 7:6, 8:2, II Corinthians 3:6, John 14:16-17, John 15:26,Romans 8:9, Galatians 4:6, Luke 4:8, John 4:24, John 4:24, I Timothy 1:17, I Peter 1:10-11, II Peter 1:21, I Corinthians10:16-17, 12:12-13, Ephesians 3:16-17, 5:27, I Peter 2:9, I Corinthians 1:2,Ephesians 2:20, Revelation 21:14, Ephesians 1:22-23, Colossians 1:24, Hebrews12:23, I Peter 2:9, John 3:5, Romans 6:3, Ephesians 4:5, I Peter 3:21, Titus3:5, I Thessalonians 4:16, I Corinthians 15:12-13, 16, 52 and I Corinthians15:54-57, and Revelation 22:5</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-62076792344848517592012-02-14T18:36:00.000-05:002012-02-23T13:34:08.985-05:00The Relentless Pursuing God<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">You might be down in the mouth, bummed, empty, or simply lonely. In that case, you likely haven't got a sense that God's got a care about you. Yet God is, and always has been passionate about you. Everything,<b> your entire world</b>, whether it is what you wish it to be or not, is designed to get your attention on Him...in particular His love for you:<br />
<br />
<strong>After Parting </strong><br />
Oh I have sown my love so wide<br />
That he will find it everywhere;<br />
It will awake him in the night,<br />
It will enfold him in the air.<br />
I set my shadow in his sight<br />
And I have winged it with desire,<br />
That it may be a cloud by day<br />
And in the night a shaft of fire.<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li>by Sara Teasdale</li></ul>And, from the Bible:<br />
"Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. <br />
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, <br />
and cry to her that her warfare is ended, <br />
that her iniquity is pardoned, <br />
that she has received from the LORD's hand <br />
double for all her sins.<br />
<br />
A voice cries: <br />
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; <br />
make straight in the desert a highway for our God. <br />
Every valley shall be lifted up, <br />
and every mountain and hill be made low; <br />
the uneven ground shall become level, <br />
and the rough places a plain. <br />
And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, <br />
and all flesh shall see it together, <br />
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”<br />
<br />
A voice says, “Cry!” <br />
And I said, “What shall I cry?” <br />
All flesh is grass, <br />
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. <br />
The grass withers, the flower fades <br />
when the breath of the LORD blows on it; <br />
surely the people are grass. <br />
The grass withers, the flower fades, <br />
but the word of our God will stand forever. <br />
Go on up to a high mountain, <br />
O Zion, herald of good news; <br />
lift up your voice with strength, <br />
O Jerusalem, herald of good news; <br />
lift it up, fear not; <br />
say to the cities of Judah, <br />
“Behold your God!” <br />
Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, <br />
and his arm rules for him; <br />
behold, his reward is with him, <br />
and his recompense before him. <br />
He will tend his flock like a shepherd; <br />
he will gather the lambs in his arms; <br />
he will carry them in his bosom, <br />
and gently lead those that are with young.<br />
<br />
Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand <br />
and marked off the heavens with a span, <br />
enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure <br />
and weighed the mountains in scales <br />
and the hills in a balance? <br />
Who has measured the Spirit of the LORD, <br />
or what man shows him his counsel? <br />
Whom did he consult, <br />
and who made him understand? <br />
Who taught him the path of justice, <br />
and taught him knowledge, <br />
and showed him the way of understanding? <br />
Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, <br />
and are accounted as the dust on the scales; <br />
behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. <br />
Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, <br />
nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. <br />
All the nations are as nothing before him, <br />
they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness.<br />
<br />
To whom then will you liken God, <br />
or what likeness compare with him? <br />
An idol! A craftsman casts it, <br />
and a goldsmith overlays it with gold <br />
and casts for it silver chains. <br />
He who is too impoverished for an offering <br />
chooses wood that will not rot; <br />
he seeks out a skillful craftsman <br />
to set up an idol that will not move.<br />
<br />
Do you not know? Do you not hear? <br />
Has it not been told you from the beginning? <br />
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? <br />
It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, <br />
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; <br />
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, <br />
and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; <br />
who brings princes to nothing, <br />
and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.<br />
<br />
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, <br />
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, <br />
when he blows on them, and they wither, <br />
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.<br />
<br />
To whom then will you compare me, <br />
that I should be like him? says the Holy One. <br />
Lift up your eyes on high and see: <br />
who created these? <br />
He who brings out their host by number, <br />
calling them all by name, <br />
by the greatness of his might, <br />
and because he is strong in power <br />
not one is missing.<br />
<br />
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, <br />
“My way is hidden from the LORD, <br />
and my right is disregarded by my God”? <br />
Have you not known? Have you not heard? <br />
The LORD is the everlasting God, <br />
the Creator of the ends of the earth. <br />
He does not faint or grow weary; <br />
his understanding is unsearchable. <br />
He gives power to the faint, <br />
and to him who has no might he increases strength...<br />
<br />
from Isaiah 40, partial, ESV</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-10501611691497076752012-02-09T19:33:00.000-05:002012-02-09T19:33:10.117-05:00His Power & Love, My Love & Trust=One Place Everywhere<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="color: black; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold; margin: 0in;">The Temper</div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">How should I praise thee, Lord! how should my rhymes</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Gladly engrave thy love in steel,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">If what my soul doth feel sometimes,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">My soul might ever feel!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Although there were some forty heavens, or more,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sometimes I peer above them all;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sometimes I hardly reach a score,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sometimes to hell I fall.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">O rack me not to such a vast extent;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Those distances belong to thee:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The world’s too little for thy tent,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A grave too </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">big for me.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Wilt thou meet arms with man, that thou dost stretch</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A crumb of dust from heav’n to hell?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Will great God measure with a wretch?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Shall he thy stature spell?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">O let me, when thy roof my soul hath hid,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">O let me roost and nestle there:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Then of a sinner thou art rid,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And I, of hope and fear.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Yet take thy way; for sure thy way is best:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Stretch or contract me, thy poor debtor:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This is but tuning of my breast,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">To make the music better.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Whether I fly with angels, fall with dust,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Thy hands made both, and I am there:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Thy power and love, my love and trust</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Make one place ev’ry where.</span><br />
<ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">by George Herbert</span></li>
</ul></div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-50868037534531784552012-02-07T21:00:00.001-05:002012-02-09T10:30:13.718-05:00HOPEHOPE. <br />
Hope is the thing with feathers<br />
That perches in the soul,<br />
And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all,<br />
<br />
And sweetest in the gale is heard;<br />
And sore must be the storm<br />
That could abash the little bird<br />
That kept so many warm.<br />
<br />
I've heard it in the chillest land,<br />
And on the strangest sea;<br />
Yet, never, in extremity,<br />
It asked a crumb of me.<br />
- by Emily DickinsonPastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-63883066508387603692012-02-05T19:45:00.002-05:002015-08-18T15:43:18.319-04:00It's Good To Be Preoccupied... About...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In this <i>Herman </i>cartoon by Jim Unger, there are two men on a desert island, they have been marooned for a long time. The man sitting under the lone palm tree is fretting, and says to the other man, "In two days I'll owe $3,000 on a library book I haven't even read!"<br />
There's an old New Yorker cartoon where a woman and a man and their child are walking down the street. The woman is holding the hand of a child who has a saucepan (a cook pot) upside down on his head. Passerbys are staring back at the child, gawking. The woman has a scowl on her face as she says to her husband, and is obviously disgusted,"I know what they're thinking! They're thinking, 'What an old, banged up saucepan that is!'"<br />
Both of these cartoons have a common theme--preoccupation with the wrong problem. Maybe your lifestyle isn't quite what you envision for yourself, so you chafe about that. Your so-called career never took off, and you stew. Or,you are "<i>just </i>a mom" and not using your college education--or never got an education--you're merely loving your children well. Or, you met and married the person who was to be the love of your life but the companionship is like, well, a <i><b>bad</b></i> prosthetic leg (good ones are great, I am told). Or you sleep on the floor on a mattress in a little room with people you hardly know because you're in another country--far from your home, far from the people you love. Or, you're in the military, and think about getting out, hoping for a better tomorrow--but wish that were TODAY. Or, maybe you had planned well but lost everything in the stock market, or in gambling, or perhaps your 401K is now a 201K. <br />
Perhaps you live in a house which is either a fixer-upper but you're not a fixer-upper, so you feel helpless. Or you're are the owner of a house which can now be sold for <i>half</i> of what you bought it for 6 years ago. <br />
Maybe you're going to lose your house--the house you raised your children in, and the house which holds such memories-good and bad. But it's the house you thought you'd live in for the rest of your life.<br />
Maybe it's really bad--you just moved to a new city and don't know anyone, don't have a job, and are unsure of how long you can stay where you're staying tonight.<br />
<b><i>You're anxious about the future.</i></b> You're a bit like the bird in this picture:<br />
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Many of these are justified concerns yet some of them are in the light of eternity, things that will pass. Our daily <i>occupation</i> is to work for a better tomorrow, to hold ourselves accountable to our Maker, but we're <i>not to be preoccupied, to be worried all the time</i>, with the wrong things.<o:p></o:p></div>
I will answer the unasked question which is begging for an answer: <b><i>What should I be preoccupied with-</i>or-<i>what is justifiable preoccupation?</i> </b><br />
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I think the answer we need to ask ourselves is always the same and is a variation of this: <b>Am I drawing closer to God every day (today)?</b> That, I think, was what Jesus was endeavoring to paint a picture of in Matthew 6 as well as many other places: Jesus says:<o:p></o:p></div>
"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also...<o:p></o:p><br />
"No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.<o:p></o:p><br />
"Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly<o:p></o:p><br />
Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?<o:p></o:p><br />
"So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For after all these things the Gentiles<o:p></o:p><br />
seek. <b>For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble</b>."<o:p></o:p></div>
PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-80627703222750148292012-02-04T16:32:00.003-05:002012-02-04T17:02:01.465-05:00A Time For Love - Above and Below Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpV9o1lmSvEGk6L63EaefQJw1npeBWfJaFVwQsFzPpE-alYxeEUkfpP6kqltv3mMu4OJeD4zZ58dE5iFSs32_g5KUN3-h-HqLwHN-3mdMW4WQnMtBtjwqh2HJpirNyzrpFg4aRy2cZHqI/s1600/Banner+over+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="165" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpV9o1lmSvEGk6L63EaefQJw1npeBWfJaFVwQsFzPpE-alYxeEUkfpP6kqltv3mMu4OJeD4zZ58dE5iFSs32_g5KUN3-h-HqLwHN-3mdMW4WQnMtBtjwqh2HJpirNyzrpFg4aRy2cZHqI/s320/Banner+over+me.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><script type="text/javascript">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">"....when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">thy time was the time of love</b>; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord GOD, and thou becamest mine." - Ezekiel 16:8</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">"He brought me to the banqueting house, and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">his banner over me was love</b>." </span><span style="font-family: Calibri;">- Song of Solomon 2:4</span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">After Communion<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why should I call Thee Lord, Who art my God?<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why should I call Thee Friend, Who are my Love?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or King, Who art my very Spouse above?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Or call Thy sceptre on my heart Thy rod?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lo now Thy banner over me is love,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">All heaven flies open to me at Thy nod:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For Thou hast lit Thy flame in me a clod,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Made me a nest for dwelling of Thy Dove.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What wilt Thou call me in our home above,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Who now hast called me friend? how will it be<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When Thou for good wine settest forth the best?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now Thou dost bid me come and sup with Thee,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now Thou dost make me lean upon Thy breast:<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">How will it be with me in time of love?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">- by Christina Rossetti</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and said to him, “<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.”</b> John 2:1-10</span></div></div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-21377910261179811482012-01-31T18:41:00.000-05:002012-01-31T18:43:52.211-05:00Real Reality – Doubts, Posers and Agnosticism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #121212; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“…a man may be haunted with doubts, and
only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the messengers of the Living One to the
honest.<br />
(Doubts) are the first knock at our door of things that are not yet but have to
be understood…Doubt must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are
what we see when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.”<br />
– George MacDonald<br />
There are religious believers who remind me of some a kind of “poser” for an
advanced rock climbers but who are “top-roping” — trusting the ropes and their
pals to make sure he’s hauled to the top in case of a slip up. He’s cockily
assured he’s always tethered, for him, checking his toe holds are of little
importance. In contrast, true “advanced” climbers are the ones who check, but
climb, and climb higher. And sometimes choose the wrong toe holds: There will
be periods of hardship and crushing difficulties and sometimes the greatest
saint will doubt. After all, he is a human. Ironically, doubt wears the disguise
of piety in times of great personal success.<br />
There is a great group below–the agnostics –who stand on the ground looking up
at the climb. Perhaps they’d been tethered and top-roped for a while, but
they’re just earthbound now. These doubters are the “Thomases.” (John 20:24-29)
One would wish them all to be honest men, who ask only to put their fingers
into His scarred hands, and thrust their hands into His sides. Sometimes they
seek a faith if only to quiet the gong of small gods and the clang of the
corruptible, unresurrected creation. Granted, a “Thomas” hasn’t yet figured it
out and maybe he’s still seeking. As long as he has the will (or is it the <i>courage</i>?)
to admit that he has been unable to find anything durable but is still actively
searching, he deserves and <em>will</em> receive an answer. “Cookie-cutter” statements
and pat answers don’t solve the doubter’s dilemma. They are better persuaded by
the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come
into the mind of others. Whether an earthbound Thomas or an advanced climber,
we all have our <em>own</em> tree to cut down:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="color: #121212; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In winter in the woods alone<br />
Against the trees I go.<br />
I mark a maple for my own<br />
And lay the maple low.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 11.5pt; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<span lang="EN" style="color: #121212; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">At four o’clock I shoulder ax,<br />
And in the afterglow<br />
I link a line of shadowy tracks<br />
Across the tinted snow.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN" style="color: #121212; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I see for Nature no defeat<br />
In one tree’s overthrow<br />
Or for myself in my retreat<br />
For yet another blow</span><br />
<br />
<span lang="EN" style="color: #121212; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">In
Winter In The Woods – by Robert Frost</span></div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-32648724603629266652012-01-30T18:36:00.000-05:002012-01-30T18:36:22.513-05:00Attitude Sickness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span lang="EN" style="color: #121212; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN;">It’s been said that ideas have
consequences—I would add that attitudes do, too. One of my great uncles was a
Communist as a young man. I suppose, the theory sounded paper-good. Family lore
has it that when he was sent overseas, he changed his mind about the
Communism’s positive contribution–and changed his attitude towards it.<br />
Little is more unsettling than a disengaged, disinterested atheist: the ones
with a “Whatever…” attitude. It’s unsettling because it’s a dead attitude:
there’s no freshness, no curiosity, no vibrancy. A few days ago, my husband was
leaving the office and met someone for the first time. This employee was
departing at the same time to go on a jog. It turned out that he was the final
person to talk to the employee alive– she was struck and killed in the evening
traffic. I do not know the spiritual state of the employee. I only know the
death was unexpected and sudden—but that is our continual status as humans.<br />
A person’s beliefs about the world is a conglomeration of who he is and who he
has become-never an accurate reflection of the world. If his belief about God
is that He is not there and does not care, I have to wonder who taught him
this. God will never will trifle with your affections—that is, He takes your
feelings seriously—probably more seriously than you do. And He, of all, is
faithful to you.<br />
Some atheists have told me, “I can’t pray so I don’t.” and “I don’t know what
to believe about God.” If you want love, then you must pray. All you need is to
be willing to try—God coaches you through it all. And you can’t pray wrongly—
not when you pray with your entire heart.<br />
“That prayer has great power which a person makes with all his might…<br />
It draws down the great God into the little heart;<br />
it drives the hungry soul up into the fullness of God;<br />
it brings together two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place<br />
where they speak much of love.” (Mechthild of Magheburg)<br />
As for “what to believe about God” problem, I suggest you ask yourself what
Christ says about Him and what is important to Him—and look in the Bible for
that information. God will provide the rest—but don’t expect a PhD in
God-o-logy, for spiritual growth can (and should) go on your entire
life—however long that is. The only hard question is: <em><span style="font-family: "Georgia","serif"; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi;">are you willing?</span></em></span></div>
</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-90694490358034046392012-01-24T18:00:00.004-05:002012-01-24T18:00:54.553-05:00Christian Women Are Aborting Their Daughter's...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Many
Roman Catholic and Christian woman are guilty of abortion. That’s right.
Abortion.<br />
They have been aborting some of the brightest intellects and some of the
greatest artists, writers, musicians, some of the finest teachers, preachers
and pray-ers. On the other hand, Christian women are excellent consumers. I
have found the best handwringers in Christian circles. We're great accusers,
get high scores in "circling the wagons" when necessary. But I have been
sickened by what I call the princess-syndrome: this is where we guard young girls from exercising their minds in difficult situations (do we expect
their prince to spring to their side?). Still, there are times we encourage their
intellectual growth--but only to a point--once they're grown they seem to have
no more need for their brain: just exchange recipes, sweet deals, and travel/mission
experiences. Singing and playing piano or organ is a thumbs-up.</span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">S</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">erious theology, preaching, and serious talk is frowned upon; if
you are serious about prayer and "deeper work within" -- well, those
are akin to "extra credit" and not a norm for every able-minded
Christian. The most common excuse is our lack of time--then spend 2 hours
watching a feel-good movie that makes us feel-good about our own mediocrity. We
</span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">do </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">have the time-we're just copping out. Hard
words? Perhaps. True words? Yes, I am certain that the only thing we are to be baby-like in is in
regard to evil (doing evil).<br />
I will admit I was in denial about the Barbie-like attitude towards life
Christian women were encouraged to live in. But once the fog cleared from my brain, I stopped
attending women's conferences and buying women's books at Christian book stores.
Dumbing down a book or sermon might have broad appeal, but is it necessary?
Doubly insulting is that both the writing and the content are dumbed down.<br />
Some of you don't believe me: well, here is a sample of something for “Christian women:”<br />
"One of my favorite foods on earth is fresh, hot, homemade apple muffins.
I make them occasionally when I have time and enjoy one with a fresh brewed pot
of coffee. I take the muffin, the coffee, and the newspaper, and sit on my
patio (sometimes with the neighborhood cats) relishing the beginning of a new
day. All my senses are pleased. Complete satisfaction. " - Luci Swindoll, </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I
Married Adventure </span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
If this were merely the beginning of a great book I wouldn't include it, but
it's not. I would never recommend it for a Christian--or nonChristian, it's like
a chat with a nice, but slightly shallow friend (I am sure Ms Swindoll's a
lovely person). But my point remains: we do harm to ourselves by publishing,
buying and recommending books. What's the harm? Christian books of this type
don't sharpen my mind, they flatten it. I still have a spirit of inquiry, I
desire discussion and exchange with the author. Our interests ought to be
piqued not squelched nor distracted.<br />
How does this connect with practical theology? Many Christian women go through
the motions of missions, social justice, and fellowship. But, is it missing
something: that is, do we do it with </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">understanding</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">? Have we read,
reflected, and grasped our piece in the global setting, historical landscape of
time, and the Spiritual Body of Christ?<br />
Or, do we roll along, struggling, to be nice, hoping to please our neighbor
most of the time now, and God in the end when our "good works"
balance out our bad? If so, we don't understand what it is to be a Christian.<br />
I believe in, but also like the weightiness and succinctness of The Apostles
Creed--and it ends this way: "I believe in the Holy Spirit; the holy
catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the
resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">. In our life the Holy
Spirit at work now, and our life is in His Kingdom here and now; the church is
universal--and let me skip to the point--</span><b><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">what do you think you
will be doing in your resurrected body</span></i></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">? Eating fresh, hot muffins on your front
porch?<br />
Our Christian calling is for progress: for ourselves, each other and the world:
Christ's redemption in this world does not <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">end</i>
in me: no, it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">begins</i>. And each thing
I do (or chose not to do), hidden or open, in private or in public, here and
now, counts in eternity. Jesus said, "Go make disciples...," not mere converts. Be a disciple, let's do more--and demand more--from our Christian
authors, screen writers and artists of all sorts.<br />
On The Image of God:<br />
"Those things which are said of God and other things are predicated
neither univocally nor equivocally, but analogically... Accordingly, since we
arrive at the knowledge of God from other things, the reality of the names
predicated of God and other things is first in God according to His mode, but
the meaning of the name is in Him afterwards. Wherefore He is said to be named
from His effects."<br />
- Thomas Aquinas, </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Summa contra Gentiles</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-91425033834552751142012-01-19T16:11:00.014-05:002015-09-24T19:37:04.566-04:00Poor, Ugly, Stupid People Might Be Happier Than You<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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</script><strong><span style="font-size: large;">Poor, Ugly, Stupid People Might Be Happier Than You</span></strong><br />
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Some drums need to be beaten over and over: gratefulness or thankfulness is one of those. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Regret-driven, or envious people are never truly satisfied nor happy; but grateful people are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">You’ve probably heard people say, “We were poor when I was a child but I was happy” as if it’s a paradox. </span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But it’s not a contradiction: One of the things we can remember to learn from children is that they take and give love (eagerly) where they find it—and material things mean little to them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shakespeare recognized the misery of ignoring your own “wealth” when comparing yourself to others in this sonnet. I have placed a paraphrase below it.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-font-family: Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">SONNET 29<o:p></o:p></span></span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,<br />
I all alone beweep my outcast state <br />
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries<br />
And look upon myself and curse my fate, <br />
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, <br />
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,<br />
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope, <br />
With what I most enjoy contented least; <br />
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,<br />
Haply I think on thee, and then my state, <br />
Like to the lark at break of day arising <br />
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;<br />
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings<br />
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">By William Shakespeare<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>Sonnet 29</strong> (by William Shakespeare, paraphrased)</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">When left alone by both fortune and people’s favor<br />
Then, Lonely Me gets depressed and cries—<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">And ask God, “Why not me?” or “Why!?” <br />
as I look at myself, at my condition and at my luck. <br />
I wish to be like those with a bright and certain future--<br />
Or ravishing good looks, or with all those great friends.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m envious of other’s abilities, and jealous of their lifestyle.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yet what I truly love in my life, I am most oblivious of.<br />
When I’m in this spot, I hate myself.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">But if by chance, I think of you, then my heart<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">is like a lark rising up at dawn’s daylight<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">from darkest earth, singing hymns at heaven’s gate;<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">For your sweet love, remembered such, wealth brings—<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">And then I wouldn’t change my life with kings.</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Calibri; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-size: small;">(for another paraphrase you may view it at: </span><a href="http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/29.html"><span style="color: blue; font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">http://www.shakespeare-online.com/sonnets/29.html</span></a></span></span></span></span></div>
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PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-79125870207298293522012-01-12T18:22:00.001-05:002012-01-12T18:23:20.168-05:00What To Do With Power in An Open Universe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"The cross opens its arms to the four winds; it is a signpost for free travelers." - GK Chesterton
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Any number of beliefs on destiny, including materialism, are by nature centripetal in this respect: that they move towards a collapsing center. Buddhism, all will be extinguished; Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Hinduism, for all the gods, has a great destiny in the extinguishment of nirvana, a blowing out. Atheism and agnosticism is materialism dressed in fine words: the endpoint of these is the grave.
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Christianity moves centrifugally; outwards, expanding and extending. It's not God's way to extinguish His <em>good</em> works: He will to bring them to blossom--eventually--in a great symphony of blooms. At the center of Christianity is the Son of Man and the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who is the Fixed Point for all. And though God is limitless, yet He became a Son, demonstrating that He can do two opposite things at once: <em>He can give men power to love Him without forcing Him to love Him.</em> This becomes our starting point (and the engine, if you will) of loving all good things He has created.<br />
"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." - John 1:12-13<br />
It is only the strong who can give the power to the weaker. In this circumstance, that of being a Christian, God shifted the responsibility for power to us (He has that authority). At this moment, this evening, night, this afternoon: though all-powerful and all-knowing, He stooped (figuratively) to give us the dignity of apparent causality in "real time." and He said, "No, it is <em>your</em> choice. If you wish to be my child, I want you to <em>desire</em> it." (Little do we realize that desire to love becomes our greatest human asset.)<br />
I like to freely interpret the verse, "Those who received him, He rushed over and crushed them to Him in the embrace of a loving parent; not because of who they were, or what they had done for him, but because He had been longing for this moment."
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And once you're His, the world, the universe starts to open up: you're imbued with a special sense for beauty, your sensitivities are heightened, your desire is finely tuned in to detect wonders, large and small. You begin to see the great plain of the world as waiting to be reworked--reworked to reflect His goodness, justice, mercy, and beauty.
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"...whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the magnificent future God has planned for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. The world of creation cannot as yet see reality, not because it chooses to be blind, but because in God’s purpose it has been so limited—yet it has been given hope. And the hope is that in the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God! It is plain to anyone with eyes to see that at the present time all created life groans in a sort of universal travail. And it is plain, too, that we who have a foretaste of the Spirit are in a state of painful tension, while we wait for that redemption of our bodies which will mean that at last we have realised our full sonship in him." (JB Phillips New Testament of Romans 8:18-25)
</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-79747857158212497932012-01-09T18:34:00.001-05:002012-01-09T18:34:35.700-05:00Working For Change<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I’ve been married for 35 years. When I was about 7 years into my marital life I read a helpful bit of advice which caused me to turn things around and to work more on myself. Dale Carnegie wrote that a woman wrote him “For years I have been wishing I had a new husband, then one day I realized perhaps he needed a new wife.”
<br />
When it comes to any kind of attitude change, it needs to happen in the will–and that is a hard place for most of us to go.<br />
<em>“Everybody thinks of changing humanity, but nobody thinks of changing himself.”</em> – Leo Tolstoy
Change is not optional: it is necessary for the preservation of ourselves, or loved ones, our descendents. We cannot fall asleep at the switch, for there are no guarantees in the history of mankind–except without vigilance and work, we’re certain to end up in a society which is uncivil, immoral, corrupt and chaotic. None of us can “opt out” of our roles. When we were born, we were born into being members of a society: there is no absentee life, we are continually making things better or worse.<br />
<em>“…in sociologically and psychologically oriented age (we) have all kinds of explanations for the moral problems of man. But according to the Bible, it is not moral declension that causes doctrinal declension; it is just the opposite.”</em> – Francis Schaeffer</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-69405780528169829392012-01-07T15:31:00.000-05:002012-01-07T15:31:57.318-05:00An Alchemy Beyond A Recipe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrASUjLVjrNsZ8mxtkVIMhUirEdg42CSmV4Mv228tV2vaV6OIXEYYLtPQ8GZ0GIKk_guL7Hx9fjvg0QRtz5WN_1y7xufD789x9lBKrfcBf1av3iHO9N4DHkAnWxuTYrntaRT8fj2TjlwM/s1600/Many+Doors.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrASUjLVjrNsZ8mxtkVIMhUirEdg42CSmV4Mv228tV2vaV6OIXEYYLtPQ8GZ0GIKk_guL7Hx9fjvg0QRtz5WN_1y7xufD789x9lBKrfcBf1av3iHO9N4DHkAnWxuTYrntaRT8fj2TjlwM/s320/Many+Doors.jpg" width="310" /></a></div></div>Images, fragrances, flavors–they all have the power to attract or to repulse. The picture here is an original piece of stitched artwork done by a Catskill artist who was doing a theme on doors–I often imagine prayer as a kind of doorway. PR men used to wrangle with the difficulties of television because it could not be Smell-O-Vision: that is, they couldn’t bring the fragrances of meals into our homes.<br />
An old friend of mine was a successful professional photographer in New York City. She told me a trade secret. She could not photograph real food and make it look tasty. To capture the savoriness of the real food, she had to employ props (fake food). I was surprised that anything as appetizing as a gourmet meal or garden-fresh produce had to be faked. But the failure was not in the <em>food</em>, but transmission of its essence by <em>camera</em>. After I learned this fact, one day I was sitting in the mental misty flats of wondering what was wrong with me for getting bored when people would talk about prayer. I realized that I was trying to draw a straight line between praying and garbled discussions of prayer. In doing so, my mistake to link my boredom of the <em>discussion</em> of prayer to me <em>praying</em> and the natural result: guilt.<em> </em>I reclaimed my life by realizing <em>prayer</em> wasn’t boring–but <em>discussing</em> it was.<br />
Since then, I carry no guilt about being bored in conversations or sermons on prayer: I have drawn a clear line between description and experience. (Instruction on prayer is necessary, but that’s a different topic, altogether.) That the stellar effects of praying are not easily transmitted doesn’t spoil my joy of prayer. The effects, the fragrance-memories, can linger in the heart for decades as a kind of retro fixed point. I’d like to believe that God gives us personal memories of prayer to sustain and re-attract us. I am sure one of God’s chief desires for me is to learn that He loves me in excess of my love for anyone or anything else. Paul says as much in his prayer for the Ephesians:<br />
“to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.” (Ephesians 3). Notice Paul doesn’t write about prayer, nor merely say, “You should love God.” He <em>prays</em> for them to <em>comprehend</em> God’s love, at least as much as (I am sure) he himself had experienced God's love.<br />
Images can give us a more concrete understanding of what I am trying to say about prayer. For this, I like how George Herbert’s poem captures a kind of slideshow in words about the effects of prayer. (Charity Johnson)<br />
<strong>Prayer (1)</strong><br />
Prayer the Church’s banquet, angel’s age,<br />
God’s breath in man returning to his birth,<br />
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,<br />
The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;<br />
Engine against th’ Almighty, sinner’s tower,<br />
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,<br />
The six days world-transposing in an hour,<br />
A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;<br />
Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,<br />
Exalted Manna, gladness of the best,<br />
Heaven in ordinary, man well-drest,<br />
The milky way, the bird of Paradise,<br />
Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul’s blood,<br />
The land of spices; something understood.<br />
by George Herbert</div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-15483794758580476742012-01-05T19:21:00.002-05:002012-01-05T19:21:10.868-05:00Learning How To Get Thrown<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"EPIC
FAIL!" "Loser!"<br />
Passed over. Bounced. Tossed out on your ear.<br />
It happens to all of us. Often it's a self-inflicted failure. What do you do then?<br />
Quit? Pack up your toys and leave? Leave in a huff?<br />
Leave in a taxi?<br />
Beat yourself up?<br />
Sometimes I am just not ready for some things, other times I have been
unprepared, and then sometimes I just need to make a course adjustment.<br />
More often though, I have to go back and do it again--and succeed. The only
problem with that plan is that (for good reasons) I am adverse to failure, to
hurt and to injury.<br />
I have found that when I must surmount temptation, or when I am facing a
mountain of a job, or a difficult task, it's best to come with a lightness in
my soul. This short humorous poem by Henry Taylor sketches out our best
attitude in these circumstances (a filly is a young female horse, my dear
international readers).<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 14.25pt; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">
<b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Riding Lesson </span></b><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />
I learned two things<br />
from an early riding teacher.<br />
He held a nervous filly<br />
in one hand and gestured<br />
with the other, saying "Listen.<br />
Keep one leg on one side,<br />
the other leg on the other side,<br />
and your mind in the middle."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">He
turned and mounted.<br />
She took two steps, then left<br />
the ground, I thought for good.<br />
But she came down hard, humped<br />
her back, swallowed her neck,<br />
and threw her rider as you'd<br />
throw a rock. He rose, brushed<br />
his pants and caught his breath,<br />
and said, "See that's the way<br />
to do it. When you see<br />
they're gonna throw you, get off."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">"Riding
Lesson," by Henry Taylor from </span><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">An Afternoon of Pocket
Billiards</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Georgia","serif"; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">
(University of Utah Press)<o:p></o:p></span></div>PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-23789516593124306962012-01-04T16:49:00.001-05:002013-01-04T02:42:44.876-05:00Bearing Grudges Will Break Your Back-What To Do When You're Hurt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It is human to wish ill on certain people and our sense of justice doesn't need prodding to produce a desire for vengence, these illustrate:<br />
<br />
<b>September 1, 1939</b><br />
I and the public know<br />
What all school children learn,<br />
Those to whom evil is done<br />
Do evil in return.
[lines 19-22] - by W.H. Auden<br />
<br />
<b>"Docimedes has lost two gloves. He asks that the person who has stolen them should lose his mind and eyes in the temple where she appoints." </b>- A Roman curse, Bath, England.<br />
<br />
"The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish." W.H. Auden, "The Prince's Dog" (p. 201)
<br />
<br />
It's normal, it's human, but, is vengeance the right way, the godly way, to respond to wrongdoing? "How shalt thou hope for mercy, rendering none?" asks Shakespeare in "The Merchant of Venice"<br />
<br />
Jesus Christ, when instructing His followers how to pray, told them to include, <br />
"Forgive us our sins, as we have forgiven those who sin against us." (Matthew 6:12, New Living Translation). Another time Christ was instructing his followers:: <br />
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust." Matthew 5:43-48 (English Standard Version)
<br />
Certainly, genuine Christian tradition through the centuries has taught and modeled Christ as in this message and life:
<br />
"Through...prayer we go to our enemy, stand by his side, and plead for him to God. Jesus does not promise that when we bless our enemies and do good to them they will not despitefully use and persecute us. They certainly will. But not even that can ...overcome us, so long as we pray for them...We are doing vicariously for them what they cannot do for themselves."- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German Resistance movement against Nazism, a founding member of the Confessing Church. Imprisoned, and then executed on April 9, 1945 in Nazi Germany.
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<br />
Maybe you're not Christian, and maybe you don't care. But maybe it's the only thing to do? <br />
It is a wonderful paradox of God: when injured person comes to God praying for his enemy, suddenly finds himself in the throne room together with God and in a sense he has become the person of greater power. The wrong-doer no longer has real power over the person he has wronged.
Retaliation, taking vengeance, has <b>no </b>up side to it. It perpetuates the harm to all people involved, and are always unintended and unforeseen consequences to taking vengeance.
I know what you're thinking: it's too much to ask. I agree. Christ's charge to his followers to pray and to forgive more often than not does require supernatural power--but then, God is in the business of supplying supernatural power, especially in these cases. It will require of you the <i>strength</i> to be humble. If you think about it, as the victim of wrongdoing, wouldn't you rather have God figure out the justice and future justice of entire mess than to live out the rest of your days in perpetual conflict, unrest and anger? Praying for your enemies is a powerful, character-changing act.
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Do <i>you </i>dare? - Charity Johnson</div>
PastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6492861423107466273.post-71092307942016630402011-12-31T11:27:00.000-05:002011-12-31T11:27:15.345-05:00New Years Eve-what if this were my last night on earth?Lord, if this night my journey end,
<br />
I thank Thee first for many a friend,
<br />
The sturdy and unquestioned piers
<br />
That run beneath my bridge of years.
<br />
<br />
And next, for all the love I gave
<br />
To things and men this side the grave,
<br />
Wisely or not, since I can prove
<br />
There always is much good in love.
<br />
<br />
Next, for the power thou gavest me
<br />
To view the whole world mirthfully,
<br />
For laughter, paraclete of pain,
<br />
Like April suns across the rain.
<br />
<br />
Also that, being not too wise
<br />
To do things foolish in men's eyes,
<br />
I gained experience by this,
<br />
And saw life somewhat as it is.
<br />
<br />
Next, for the joy of labour done
<br />
And burdens shouldered in the sun;
<br />
Nor less, for shame of labour lost,
<br />
And meekness born of a barren boast.
<br />
<br />
For every fair and useless thing
<br />
That bids men pause from labouring
<br />
To look and find the larkspur blue
<br />
And marigolds of a different hue;
<br />
<br />
For eyes to see and ears to hear,
<br />
For tongue to speak and thews to bear,
<br />
For hands to handle, feet to go,
<br />
For life, I give Thee thanks also.
<br />
<br />
For all things merry, quaint and strange,
<br />
For sound and silence, strength, and change,
<br />
And last, for death, which only gives
<br />
Value to every thing that lives;
<br />
<br />
For these, good Lord that madest me,
<br />
I praise Thy name; since, verily,
<br />
I of my joy have had no dearth
<br />
Though this night were my last on earth.
<br />
<br />
- By Dorothy SayersPastRemainshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13764919337850713245noreply@blogger.com0