It’s interesting how often food is mentioned in Scripture.
We see it parallel our spiritual lives in so many ways.
What goes in, must come out.
Man cannot live on bread alone…
Take and eat, this is my body…
Even the early Christians were known to partake in a “Love Feast” where everyone joined together and shared their meals and life together. I liken it to what Max Fincher calls, “The Gospel of Welcome.”
Continue reading Dining with friends
(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.
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
I think its safe to say that we’d all like to be able to help a friend in need. It’s probably even safe to say that many of us would be willing to help a stranger if it didn’t take too much out of our own wallet or time or energy.
I personally wish I was less selfish myself and more giving — even when it stretches my wallet or time.
But perhaps we can all re-think a corporation’s generosity (aka marketing) to help those who are hurting and in need.
This week @sgalloway re-tweeted an idea that while many were jumping on Oprah’s FREE KFC coupon offer for themselves — perhaps the better idea would be to print out the coupons and give some free food to the homeless or others in need. (unfortunately you can no longer print off the coupons – but if you’ve printed the coupons off – they’re still good for a week or so.)
I had ignored the e-mails I had seen up until that point, but after seeing the idea, I quickly jumped on it and printed out my 4 coupons to buy a meal for someone else.
Today I saw another freebie from Sonic :: FREE CroisSONICâ„¢ Breakfast Sandwich with purchase of a large drink.
I’m not sure what the normal price of this CroisSonic is but I’d bet you’re saving $3-$4 with the coupon.
So you buy a drink for yourself and get a FREE breakfast sandwich to give to someone in need. Or better yet, spend a buck or two and get a sandwich and a drink for someone else in need.
I bet there are promotions like this popping up all over the place. Perhaps we can re-think these promotions and rather than scoring a great deal for ourselves – we can better help someone else in need.
What promotions have you seen recently? Anyone else put this into practice?
Photo from strandloper
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.”
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….
A new CNN article today reports that the more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
Can someone please tell me why?
Is there something I’m missing along the way?
Photo by benab