Category: reflections

Monday Briefs

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Highlights of the week ::
We finally made our trip to Fort Worth and went to the Botanical Gardens today. We had a great time enjoying the public gardens (a lot cheaper than Dallas’ Arboretum :-)) followed up by a stop at Sonic and driving through Kessler Park looking at homes. It was a warm day and a bit muggy, but I didn’t seem to notice walking in the shade most of the time.

Laurie’s got some photos on her Flickr page and I’ll probably upload some soon too.

What I’m chewing on ::
Isaiah 58

“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
to break the chains of injustice,
get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
free the oppressed,
cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
sharing your food with the hungry,
inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’
Continue reading Monday Briefs

Doing it all wrong

Shaun Groves just returned from a week+ long trip to India with a group of bloggers for Compassion International (read their thoughts here).

As part of their trip, Shaun he met with a couple different pastors who are choosing to do church outside of the norm.

Shaun Groves in India

Shaun writes…

This guy’s doing it all wrong.

He’s the pastor of a church in Kolkata, India that’s partnering with Compassion International – he says to “serve” kids in his community.

Pete and I saw a lot of unchurchy stuff going on at this church….

This is a common mistake for pastors in the developing world. They don’t know any better. They’ve never been to a pastors conference.

I’ve seen this time and again: churches in the third world doing stuff we Christians in America are savvy enough to get politicians and non-profits to do for us.

Check out Shaun’s blog for pictures and more info… and then I encourage you to say a prayer for all the guys doing it all wrong.

The Furious Longing of God

I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me.

(song of solomon 7:10)

Imagine if this was you story… an alcoholic, Catholic, ex-Catholic, and then Catholic again, former priest, divorcee and a sinner saved by grace.

What would you write about?

I’d hope no matter how many stories you told and no matter how many books you wrote, you’d always go back to reminding folks about God’s Amazing Grace. It’s “the larger and more important story. Only God, in His fury, knows the whole of it.”

Brennan Manning writes in his latest offering:

In my forty-four years of ministry, the furious love of God has been the dominant theme of my life. I’ve varied with titles such as Ragamuffin Gospel, Abba’s Child and The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, but they are all facets of the same gem: that the shattering truth of the transcendent God seeking intimacy with us is not well served by gauzy sentimentality, schmaltz, or a naked appeal to emotion, but rather in the boiling bouillabaisse of shock bordering on disbelief, wonder akin to incredulity, and the affectionate awe tinged by doubt.

Continue reading The Furious Longing of God

A Christian Ethic of Blogging

museum-ethics

Blake Huggins shared his thoughts on this great quote from NT Wright…

“It really is high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging. Bad temper is bad temper even in the apparent privacy of your own hard drive, and harsh and unjust words, when released into the wild, rampage around and do real damage. And as for the practice of saying mean an unjust things behind a pseudonym – well if I get a letter like that it goes straight in the bin. But the cyberspace equivalents of road rage don’t happen by accident. People who type vicious, angry, slanderous and inaccurate accusations do so because they feel their worldview to be under attack.” – NT Wright

Blake continues…

I couldn’t agree more. Blogging is at the same time both great and dangerous. It brings out the best and the worst in us. I am grateful for the many friends that I have made through this platform but I get really put out with the slander and hateful words that are put forth under the auspices of speaking the truth or defending the faith, or whatever else. As Christians we have a great opportunity to have rich and robust conversation and to model what charitable dialogue and respectful disagreement might look like. At our best we do that well, but sometimes we blow it.

I totally agree with both. I’ve twittered and blogged several times in the past about how difficult it would be to go a whole day without complaining about something online.
Continue reading A Christian Ethic of Blogging

Monday Briefs

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Highlights of the week ::
Well it wasn’t anything we originally planned, but Laurie and I were able to celebrate our second anniversary on Friday and Saturday night. Friday night we made our annual visit to Outback Steakhouse and enjoyed some great steak, a bloomin’ onion, a large Foster beer (for me) and a desert sampler (for her – even though I probably ate more than her). We then came home and watched Bride Wars while snuggling on the couch (in case you wanted to know).

Saturday we had plans to go to Fort Worth for the day, but because of the forecasted rain, I did yard work and she did a few things around the house, like ironing some shirts for me (THANKS!). Then we decided to enjoy some Royal Burgers at Red Robin. Then we came home and snuggled on the couch again, watching Slumdog Millionaire.

Hopefully we’ll be able to make our planned day trip to Fort Worth before too long.

Quote I’m diggin and chewing on ::
“A Christian should be able to go to the White House, a crack house, their momma’s house or any house and come out with their integrity, vision, compassion, and commitment to justice intact.

If the Kingdom of God is within you, then everywhere you go you should leave a little heaven behind. People will know you to be a heaven leaver. You can learn to love your crooked neighbor with your own crooked heart because you’re connected to a power and grace greater than your ego.”

– Dr. Cornel West

I’m wondering and chewing on this: I leaving a bit of heaven or hell online, offline, in your house, in my house, in my car, in my marriage, in my relationships, in my family, in my job, in my church?

Movies of recent days ::
Three movies in three days?! That’s just unheard of around these parts! But as I mentioned above, we watched Bride Wars and Slumdog Millionaire this weekend and then I watched The Wrestler on Sunday afternoon.

Bride Wars was as expected, a “chick-flick.” I think Laurie liked it but said it wasn’t one she’d go out and buy.

Slumdog Millionaire was really good in my mind. Something different and challenging. Showed a side of India that we don’t typically see and also challenged me to continue thinking about how we so often slap labels on people far too quickly.

The Wrestler was OK but as I mentioned on Facebook, not one I’d watch with my parents :-). It was a bit crude at times and having one of the main characters working at a strip club didn’t help the matter. From the little I know, it was pretty accurate to the story of the indie wrestling scene. I think I kept waiting to see the redemption story in the movie but I don’t feel like it ever came. Perhaps (for those who’ve seen it) Ram’s redemption came in pushing through and living out his passion, with a finger to the rest of the world or maybe there was another sub-narrative I missed. Or perhaps there was no redemption story. What’d you think?

#nanowrimo update ::
I finally finished the first edit of my novel, St. Peter’s Brewery. I still have a couple spots I want to re-work, but now I can start making the edits from my read-through as well as the others several other folks submitted. If I can stay on task, perhaps the book will be ready for release by July? We’ll hope so.

Looking forward to ::
I can’t actually think of much right now that I’m looking forward to. Seems a bit depressing? I’ll keep you posted if I can think of something.

Till next week….