Category: reflections

My enemies are men like me

I read this great thought and quote this morning while reflecting on Brian’s message yesterday about forgiveness.

Someone has written that hatred is like drinking a cup of poison and waiting for the person you hate to die. It doesn’t harm the person you hate, or at least not in any way like the havoc it wreaks on you. In fact, hatred has the exact opposite effect of what you would hope for; a wise man in Cormac McCarthy’s novel Cities of the Plain explains that “Our enemies . . . seem always with us. The greater our hatred the more persistent the memory of them so that a truly terrible enemy becomes deathless. So that the man who has done you great injury or injustice makes himself a guest in your house forever. Perhaps only forgiveness can dislodge him.”

But God help us, forgiveness can be a really hard thing to do.

…not dealing with emotional and spiritual cancer like internalized rage is a disaster. It’s like ignoring physical cancer and hoping it will go away.

Perhaps my enemies are much more like us than we’d ever want to admit and as Brian mentioned yesterday, forgiving them is the only thing that can really set us free.

Editing for time

Wikipedia - Art Historian by quartermane

You know, I really hate editing — especially when it relates to someone else’s work.

Each week Thomas and I do our podcast and I always make a point to never shorten or cut the interviews we do with folks. After all, our goal is to share their story with folks and hopefully they’re something the listeners walk away from and talk about with their friends.

Along with the interviews, Thomas and I normally chat about the interviews/stories at the end of the show. I always enjoy the chats and wish time permitted us to really delve into these stories like we might do if we were sitting in a living room together. I think almost all of our podcasts could lead to a discussion that lasts over several hours.

However, due to the space-time-continuum, bandwidth and our listeners available time, I do my best to be sure our podcasts only last an hour in length. Which means that if we do a 30 min interview we have roughly 22-25 minutes to introduce the show and then to discuss the interview at the end (our musical clips take up 5-8 minutes usually). If we do a 45 min interview we end up with maybe 10 minutes to do all that.

Here in lies my frustration. I have trouble picking which part of the discussion might be more beneficial than others. If we really are “Free Range Christians” or “Open Source Christians” I hate the idea that I might be limiting the discussion when I go back and edit our discussions.

There are so many great points that Thomas brings up but I end up having to cut much of our discussion due to the “self-imposed time crunch.”

I also run into similar issues when leading a community group.

Everyone has a story to share. And I love hearing those stories. I love people sharing their stories (hence the podcast). Many people have examples in their life that relate to the discussion — but I also have to consider the time constraints other people in the group may have. That time constraint comes into greater play if its an early morning and people have to head to work — or a week night when folks have to head home so they can get to bed.

So what to do? I dunno. But I do hate editing — and thought you should know.

The Church is…

Here’s another great tidbit from Tall Skinny Kiwi & Phyllis Tickle (who by the way will be at The Great Emergence Conference in Dec.). The quote was featured in Tall Skinny Kiwi’s talk at GodBlogCon and comes from Tickle’s latest book The Great Emergence (need to get me a copy of that!)

…the Church, capital C — in not really a thing so much as it is a network in exactly the same way that the Internet or the World Wide Web, or for that matter gene regularity or metabolic networks are not “things” or “entities.”

I love that! It goes right along with the ideas/thoughts that I have running through my mind right now in preparation for “speaking” at encounter on Oct 12. We’ll see where it all leads me/us.

captivated

when I look into the mountains, I see Your fame,
when I look into the night sky, it sparkles Your name

the wind in the clouds and the blue in the sky,
the sun and the moon and the stars so high
that’s what draws me to You

I am, I’m captivated by You
(You know that You do)
I am, I’m captivated

when I wake unto the morning, it gives me Your sights,
when I look across the ocean, it echoes Your mights

the sand on the shore and the waves in the sea,
the air in my lungs and the way You made me
that’s what draws me to You

the wind in the clouds and the blue in the sky,
the sun and the moon and the stars so high,
the sand on the shore and the waves in the sea,
the air in my lungs and the way You made me,

the blood in my veins and my heart You invade,
the plants how they grow and the trees in the shade,
the way that I feel and the love in my soul,
I thank You my God for letting me know

I’ve come to start a fire


Fire and Water
Originally uploaded by peasap.

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Luke 12:49-53

Wait a second… what happened to the God of Peace and Love!? What’s he talking about here?

A voice from the past?

Read this this morning… seems pretty applicable for today ::

“Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can’t go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It’s obvious, isn’t it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being.”
Luke 12:33-34