Quote of the day....."between bites of wiener-schnitzel"

"It is the responsibility of every single one of us to not tolerate this. I know it sounds dramatic but I believe in it," Fair says. "In 1932, some German people were probably saying between bites of wiener-schnitzel, 'this is some f*cked up shit,' and then didn't do anything."

That is a quote by C. Christine Fair....a Georgetown University professor who interrupted Richard Spencer's workout at the gym to confront him about his alt-right very public neo nazi views.

You can read about the whole encounter in this buzzfeed article.

Mirror or Window? You Decide.....

This morning I followed a link on FB that led to an article on the Charisma website about Perry Noble, a prominent pastor of a Baptist megachurch, and his recent downfall/firing. He was fired for alcohol abuse and his posture toward his marriage…..whatever that means.

The parishioners of the megachurch heard the news on Sunday via Executive Pastor Shane Duffey. He also read Noble’s written statement explaining, among other things, that there was no sexual sin in his marriage, no porn, no cheating and no domestic abuse. The details of the marriage posture allegation is left to the imagination.  

So...the post on FB included a quote attributed to Noble stating that homosexuality was the sin that hung Jesus on a cross. That immediately pissed me off. What a pompous jerk. I went looking for the source of that quote to include in this blog post. Except that I can’t find it anywhere online. Oh to be sure, he thought homosexuality was a sin...a sexual sin...but that the church's preoccupation with homosexuality was out of proportion and unkind.  On his blog, I came across what I think is a particularly ballsy post where he compares the sin of homosexuality to a sin the church is reluctant to talk about….obesity aka gluttony.

Bring that up to an overweight brother or sister in Christ at the next covered dish pot luck and see how graciously your "truth in love" concern is received.

I was not familiar with Perry Noble until this morning. I've never heard his name. What I know now is the result of about an hour of clicking and reading here and there on the internet. I really have no idea what kind of a person he is, his opinions on total reconciliation, divorce, complementarianism, free will, women in leadership roles, etc. I can assume things from what I’ve read but I am not familiar with his preaching or writing. He doesn’t really come off as a pompous jerk in anything I’ve read this morning.

And anyway, similar to a stopped clock that is actually right twice a day, even a pompous jerk can say things that are profound, wise and true now and then. The old eat the meat/hay, spit out the bones/sticks theory works well for me. Like the proverbial diamond in a dung heap, I am on the lookout for truth no matter where I find it. Even if I have to distance it somewhat from the character and behavior of the source.  Today the following quote by Noble struck me as profound, wise and true….

“And it is way easier to use the Bible as a window in order to judge the lives of others rather than a mirror to examine ourselves.” Perry Noble   

Tinsel or Gold?

But in order to be a truly positive person in all circumstances, one has to learn how to distinguish real gold from tinsel. It is hard, because tinsel sometimes glitters so dazzlingly. I confess, my child, that often in my life I was dazzled by glitter. And sometimes it even shone so falsely, that one dropped pure gold from one's hand and reached for, or ran after, false gold.

This quote was written by Milada Horáková the night before her execution on June 27, 1950. She was convicted of high treason; found guilty of plotting to overthrow the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.  It is an excerpt from a letter she wrote to her 16 year old daughter.

I came upon it on a blog called Letters of Note, a website that features under the radar correspondence from/to famous people. If you love obscure quotes that you can't find on sites like BrainyQuotes, it is an interesting place to visit.

It makes me wonder what I might feel compelled to write to my kids if I knew I was going to die tomorrow. She was a brave woman. She was very wise. I’m not sure I could write anything as profound as what she penned in the letter. I wonder if she wept as she wrote it. I wonder if she questioned the choices she made in her life....whether what she thought was gold what actually tinsel.

One day, when you grow up, you will wonder and wonder, why your mother who loved you and whose greatest gift you were, managed her life so strangely. Perhaps then you will find the right solution to this problem, perhaps a better one than I could give you today myself. Of course, you will only be able to solve it correctly and truthfully by knowing very, very much. Not only from books, but from people; learn from everybody, no matter how unimportant! Go through the world with open eyes, and listen not only to your own pains and interests, but also to the pains, interests and longings of others.

Until my last breath I shall pray for your happiness, my dear child!

Tony Campolo Changes His Mind.....

I’ve written about or quoted Tony Campolo in a half dozen blog posts….HERE.

I love Tony Campolo and have followed his ministry...and his wife's ministry....for years. She has always been for the full inclusion of LGBT folks in the church. Tony, well, not so much, although his heart was always kind and tender.

It looks like Tony finally came around. There has been considerable backlash about his statement published on June 8th but he is no stranger to backlash. He has been riling up fellow evangelicals for years. He was even “tried” on heresy charges. In fact, he is the only living evangelical to have endured such a thing. And at the hands of his fellow believers. From Wikipedia:

Campolo was the subject of an informal heresy hearing in 1985 brought about by several assertions in his 1983 book A Reasonable Faith, particularly his claim that, "Jesus is actually present in each other person". The book became a hot button issue, and the controversy caused Campus Crusade for Christ and Youth for Christ to block a planned speaking engagement by Campolo. The Christian Legal Society empowered a "reconciliation panel", led by noted theologian J. I. Packer, to examine the issue and resolve the controversy. The panel examined the book and questioned Campolo. The panel issued a statement saying that although it found Campolo's statements "methodologically naïve and verbally incautious", it did not find them to be heretical.

What pompous asses Christians can be. It seems to me two of the beliefs that mainstream Christians hold nearest and dearest are their beliefs in hell and the depravity of homosexuality. They are also unwilling to take a closer look-see beneath the surface meaning of words in their modern bible translations to see if perhaps they could be mistaken....if the traditional church could be mistaken. That’s how Tony came to a different conclusion.

I was deeply uncertain about what was right.  It has taken countless hours of prayer, study, conversation and emotional turmoil to bring me to the place where I am finally ready to call for the full acceptance of Christian gay couples into the Church.

Another quote from Tony….

However, I am old enough to remember when we in the Church made strong biblical cases for keeping women out of teaching roles in the Church, and when divorced and remarried people often were excluded from fellowship altogether on the basis of scripture. Not long before that, some Christians even made biblical cases supporting slavery. Many of those people were sincere believers, but most of us now agree that they were wrong. I am afraid we are making the same kind of mistake again, which is why I am speaking out.  

Good for you, Tony….

You can read his statement HERE.

And another article that talks about his change of heart and whether this might be the tipping point for evangelicals is HERE.

Equal and Opposite Reactions....

From my last post:

……..because of the enlightenment and several subsequent movements that have “dissed” scripture, fundamentalists pushed back in a Newtons Law kind of way…...for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Now that is a really interesting thought….this push back thing. When I first heard it (in the sermon by Adam Hamilton) the light bulb lit up. Isn’t that the truth! Yes, indeed, I have witnessed this, both at large in the whole wide world and specifically, in my own little corner.

At large, I have seen people take on a do or die attitude when an idea questions, threatens, or discredits one of their sacred cow beliefs. Ideas and beliefs that might not have seemed all that important become hills to die on or at least issues that merit taking a firm stand on. And of course, I have seen this same law at work up close and personal in my relationships, my job and within myself....

The birth of the Five Points of Calvinism, TULIP, comes to mind. What a great example of this push back.

The controversy between Arminianism and Calvinism arose in Holland in the early 1600’s. The founder of the Arminian party was Jacob Arminius (1560–1609). He studied under the strict Calvinist Theodore Beza at Geneva and became a professor of theology at the University of Leyden in 1603.  Gradually Arminius came to reject certain Calvinist teachings. The controversy spread all over Holland, where the Reformed Church was the overwhelming majority. The Arminians drew up their creed in Five Articles (written by Uytenbogaert), and laid them before the state authorities of Holland in 1610 under the name Remonstrance, signed by forty-six ministers.
The Calvinists responded with a Counter-Remonstrance. But the official Calvinistic response came from the Synod of Dort which was held to consider the Five Articles from November 13, 1618 to May 9, 1619. There were eighty-four members and eighteen secular commissioners. The Synod wrote what has come to be known as the Canons of Dort. These are still part of the church confession of the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church. They state the Five Points of Calvinism in response to the Five Articles of the Arminian Remonstrants. (See Schaff, vol. 3, pp. 581–596).  

That rather longish quote above is from John Piper’s website, Desiring God….and hey, if anyone knows Calvinist doctrine and history, it is John Piper!!

The so-called Five Points were not coined by the Calvinists to clarify their beliefs for their own benefit and edification. They emerged as a response to the Arminians who chose five points of reformed doctrine to oppose.

Isn’t that interesting? The beliefs of Arminius were birthed, very likely, as a response to his ultra-calvinistic education. That led to the 5 point Remonstrance…..that initiated a response, the Counter-Remonstrance.

I’ve seen this “law” of Newton’s played out in real life….my own life and the lives of those around me. There are many things that affect and form our beliefs and behaviors. This is just one of many subtle, often unconscious, factors. Nature/nurture, cognitive biases, prejudice, cultural influences, maternal instinct, mimesis…..and so on and so forth....

Obviously, the formation of our opinions and beliefs cannot be oversimplified or “boiled down” to a theory of physics or to any ONE theory, bias or influencing factor. However, thinking outside our own personal box of beliefs can lead to introspection that can lead to a startling clarity also known as a wtf moment. Sometimes it can even lead to a change of mind/heart. But not necessarily because we tend to be very comfortable in our own state of "belief inertia."

I came upon that term while looking for interesting quotes from people wiser than me to beef up this blog post. I found two new to me blogs that struck my fancy.

Eric Raymond’s blog Armed and Dangerous and Less Wrong, a Community Blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality.

On Less Wrong, Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote -

The temptation is always to claim the most points with the least effort. The temptation is to carefully integrate all incoming news in a way that lets us change our beliefs, and above all our actions, as little as possible. John Kenneth Galbraith said: "Faced with the choice of changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof." And the greater the inconvenience of changing one's mind, the more effort people will expend on the proof.

The effort people expend on the proof is the "equal and opposite reaction" part of Newton's Law.

In response, Eric Raymond opined that belief inertia (which happens to relate to another one of Newton’s Laws, the law of inertia) is also due to the fact that:

Changing beliefs is not costless, and may commit you to a decision procedure that is too heavyweight to be worth some very marginal gain in utility.

This post is getting long so I am going to end with another quote I found and continue with this same topic in my next post.

 If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated. Wilfred Trotter

What I want to be when I grow up

I am in the process of figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. Nevermind that I am already almost old.. I’ve let life bounce me along - REacting instead of acting.

Cathy Walker posted the following on Facebook today-

“Be an atmosphere changer…..be the thermostat not the thermometer.”

I’ve mostly been the thermometer; rarely, the thermostat. And I’ve just kind of bobbed along in the sea of life.  

This past year, in an effort to help Emily cover college expenses, I started an etsy shop and relaunched a craft business from yesteryear. It was not a success. If you are interested, you can read about it on my other blog, It’s Personal.

Even though I have all kinds of ideas and the best of intentions, I’ve pretty much ignored this blog. I haven’t done much organized reading. I haven’t journaled or smashbooked or studied the Bible.. (Damn, I’m feeling more and more like a loser) I’ve focused too much of my attention on the never ending (NEVER ENDING, I tell you) list of chores and errands. That is going to stop!  

So for the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve been assessing my coulda’, woulda,’ shoulda’s. I’ve come across all kinds of suggestions about goals/resolutions/missions. Some are very helpful. Some are idealistic. Some are just dumb.

In my web travels, I came upon the following list from Pope Francis. He did not frame these suggestions in the context of New Year’s Resolutions but rather as his “do these ten things” pre-Christmas advice to Vatican employees. I like some of them a lot and decided to share them here on Mercy. .

– “Take care of your spiritual life, your relationship with God, because this is the backbone of everything we do and everything we are.”

– “Take care of your family life, giving your children and loved ones not just money, but most of all your time, attention and love.”

– “Take care of your relationships with others, transforming your faith into life and your words into good works, especially on behalf of the needy.”

– “Be careful how you speak, purify your tongue of offensive words, vulgarity and worldly decadence.”

– “Heal wounds of the heart with the oil of forgiveness, forgiving those who have hurt us and medicating the wounds we have caused others.”

– “Look after your work, doing it with enthusiasm, humility, competence, passion and with a spirit that knows how to thank the Lord.”

– “Be careful of envy, lust, hatred and negative feelings that devour our interior peace and transform us into destroyed and destructive people.”

– “Watch out for anger that can lead to vengeance; for laziness that leads to existential euthanasia; for pointing the finger at others, which leads to pride; and for complaining continually, which leads to desperation.”

– “Take care of brothers and sisters who are weaker … the elderly, the sick, the hungry, the homeless and strangers, because we will be judged on this.”

The Lovely Trees

Last weekend, I drove from my home in Williamsport, Pennsylvania to visit my mom in Ellwood City. Williamsport is in the middle of the state…. toward the north. Ellwood City is about an hour from the Ohio border so the trip involves driving across a big chunk of Pennsylvania on Interstate 80.

Interstate 80 is bordered by mountains almost the whole length of the drive. The trip is scenic in any season, sometimes breathtakingly so. Usually  my attention is honed in on  driving defensively….checking my mirrors, keeping an eye on the trucks and the hot shots trying to drive 20 or 30 mph over the speed limit. But on this trip, my eyes were repeatedly drawn to the hillsides.

They were varying, blended shades of a dark, rusty, tannish, blackish brown. They reminded me of the color of sienna, umber and burnt umber crayons; drab colors that made a  perfect background for the few trees whose leaves are still almost shockingly vivid and aglow. Bright, bright yellows; the crayon  you might pick to draw the yolk of an egg. Almost illuminated. Glowing...shimmery.  And the RED ones.  Capital letter red. Just the most breathtaking shades of red. I shook my head and exclaimed  “wow”a time or two, amazed at the splendor. And really….the colors could only be described with words like splendor.

It was raining a lot of the way but even the dark mistiness served as a contrast to those iridescent trees.  

There is a message there someone. Some spiritual implication.  Keith has always been fond of saying that things in the natural are reflections of profound spiritual truths. As above, so below. I can’t quite put my finger on it...but something is there hiding. It’s nagging at me like a name I can’t remember, the words to a song, a memory that is almost, but not quite clear.

Some things that come to mind….

The quote from Ann Voskamp, a blogger/author I've been reading lately. In one post she said she told her husband, the Farmer

…..that it was brave, the way the trees made dying look glorious.

And the controversy in the news and Christian circles recently about the young woman with incurable, terminal, late stage brain cancer. She chose to take her own life before the ravages of the disease plunged her into a real living hell. Some folks say she is brave. Other folks say she is a coward.

I’m inclined to say that it’s easy to take the high road when it’s not your path to walk.

And then another thought that is a game changer, a different perspective on this process we witness every fall as we sigh and lament that “winter is just around the corner.” Leaves do not just fall from the trees. The trees actively shed them.

Apparently, when the days start getting shorter and colder, trees start to seal off the place where leaf stem meets tree branch with a row of cells called "abscission" cells. The tree could not survive the winter with leaves attached because of moisture loss and such so the leaves have to go.

So really, it is the leaf that dies….not the tree. Come spring, the tree is good to go and sprouts new leaves. The leaf that fell in the fall is gone. Hmmmmmm….

If the natural hints at the spiritual, what do the trees and their colorful, dying leaves tell us?

We have one of those trees with tenacious leaves that hang on and on (and on) in our front yard. It is an ornamental pear tree that we planted when it was about the same height as I am now.  They are slow growers but  it is probably 20 feet tall….and a lovely, sturdy (yet elegant) tree. Our neighbor has a much bigger one in her front yard. They seem to be in sync and their leaves are still there late into the fall.

Our pear trees are still all green with only the tips of a few leaves showing some reddish tinges at the edges. Keith grumbled the other day that he will be raking leaves in mid November.  

The world is tired, the year is old,The faded leaves are glad to die...~Sara Teasdale, "November"

Not the leaves on our pear trees..... 

More about Prayer....

I was going through the list of prayer quotes I have stashed away in Evernote. I came upon a quote that I wanted to include in this series of posts. I hadn’t saved the source of the quote. A quick copy and paste into Google provided the answer right away. The source was Richard Rohr. He said:

The traditional and most universal word to describe a different access to truth was simply “to pray about something.” But that lovely word “prayer” has been so deadened by pious use and misuse that we now have to describe this different mental attitude with new words. I am going to introduce a different word here, so you can perceive in a fresh way, and perhaps appreciate what we mean by contemplation. The word is “resonance.”
Prayer is actually setting out a tuning fork. All you can really do in the spiritual life is get tuned to receive the always-present message. Once you are tuned, you will receive, and it has nothing to do with worthiness or the group you belong to, but only inner resonance and a capacity for mutuality (Matthew 7:7-11). The Sender is absolutely and always present and broadcasting; the only change is with the receiver station.

Or as Anne Lamott wrote in her book, “Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

....when you pray, you are not starting the conversation from scratch, just remembering to plug back into a conversation that's always in progress.

One of the sites that popped up in the Google search results led to a blog called “Progressive Redneck Preacher.” He published a post about a week ago entitled “Tuning into the Sacred Song: Our Week in the Living Word.” He included the tuning fork quote in that post.

He mainly wrote about a type of prayer called Breath Prayer. (and his experience with it over the course of a week) A breath prayer is a short phrase uttered soundlessly to the rhythm of our breathing….inhaling and exhaling. Examples that I particularly like…..

Inhale – “Peace”

Exhale – “Be still”

Or how about this one….that fits well with this type of prayer

Inhale – “Closer is He than breathing”

Exhale – “Nearer than hands and feet”

You get the idea. There were several links in the post that led to some websites that went into this prayer (and others) in more detail. I looked around a bit online and couldn’t find any sites better than two of the ones he listed;

Ten Ways to Pray

and

Soul Shepherding

The effectiveness of this prayer (in quieting our body and mind and in honing our listening to God skills) seems to be a blending of the physical and the spiritual. We all know that deep, slow rhythmic breathing calms the body. Take a deep breath. Calm down. Take ten deep breaths. Calm down even more. Sometimes when I am very, very stressed I realize I am barely breathing at all. Short, shallow, hardly there intakes of air. No wonder I feel anxious. I’m suffocating.

I have a thing about the dentist. Not a good thing either. It isn't really about the pain. It is more about the claustrophobic feeling that comes with tubes that suck and spray, grinding drills and all those hands in my face. Keith reminded me once to take deep, calming breaths. It was one of the methods he used to help his scared silly skydiving students stay calm enough to focus as they jumped out of the airplane.

The slow, steady breathing involved with this kind of prayer coupled with a calming phrase from or about scripture seems a perfect combination. On the site that talked about various ways to pray, they recommended using your ten fingers to count…yep…ten deep prayer breaths and then pausing to offer a praise or a petition or even just a moment of silent contemplation. 

And in one of the articles I read, they used Anne Lamott’s simple prayer from Traveling Mercies as an example of a Breath Prayer.

Here are the two best prayers I know:“Help me, help me, help me” and "Thank you, thank you, thank you."

Turn that into a Breath Prayer....

Inhale – Help me, help me, help me

Exhale – Thank you, thank you thank you

More coming about different ways to help us pray....

The Blessing of Growth

I happened upon an article this morning on Huffington Post…written by Shane L. Windmeyer, the founder and executive director of Campus Pride. His organization advanced the national campaign against Chick-fil-A.  The article is entitled Dan and Me: My Coming Out as a Friend of Dan Cathy and Chick-fil-A

I haven’t cared much for Dan Cathy since the firestorm a few months ago…..when Chick-fil-A became the unwitting symbol for the fight to save traditional marriage….I mean the right of free speech.  Uh-huh…... 

I was more than a bit put off by all the Christians, who stood in line for hours, called to action by Sean Hannity, to demonstrate their support for free speech by buying a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. Let’s just say, I strongly suspect that the motive of most of the people who stood in those long lines was to make an anti gay rights statement. I don’t think it was about free speech.  

So I didn’t care much for him….or his views….or his values….or his monetary contributions to what some would consider hate groups. 

So I was surprised….convicted….and then encouraged by the article this morning on Huffington Post.  It’s an example of how folks who hold almost polar opposite world views can sit down and have a civil conversation, showing each other mutual respect.  And in doing so they can actually find common ground and opportunities to grow and make the world a better place. 

Dan Cathy called it the “blessing of growth.”

There were numerous cynical, sarcastic comments in response to the article, coming from both sides of the gay rights divide. There was still mud slinging and hate; the “gay guys” didn’t want to give an inch to the “religious bigots” and visa versa.  There were charges of selling out, settling, hypocrisy. From both sides.   

Some people only want to hang on to their world view and beliefs….demonizing the other guy. As long as we are demonizing the other guy, real change and the blessing of growth is very elusive. 

I have to point out that this type of conversation only seems to work when both sides want it to work.  If the agenda is to BE understood rather than to UNDERSTAND….if the agenda is to convince, talk over, debate…..this type of conversation cannot accomplish much.

Some people do not want to understand or extend a hand in friendship. Some people simply want to be right. 

Evangelical Christians are multi dimensional creatures…..and like gay people cannot be defined through an isolated lens.

The world does not need more enemies….it needs more unlikely friendships like these two guys, more open dialogue, more understanding, less hate and intolerance.

I am reminded of the quote by Abraham Lincoln

The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.

And a bonus quote from Martin Luther King

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.

Just Do It….?

There is a motivational quote that's made the rounds on Facebook....and T-shirts....baseball caps...cups, pins, magnets, bags, aprons and buttons.

No matter how slow you go you're still lapping everyone on the couch. 

The focus is usually exercise....specifically running...but it applies to all kinds of things.  In our busy world, it is hard to dredge up the motivation, carve out the time, inspire ourselves to action and like a Nike advertisement...JUST DO IT.

Just do it?  Uhhhh….how about “Just shut up!” because “just do it” is not all that easy!

I want to be healthy and fit (and skinny too, of course....but like THAT’S ever gonna' happen.)  Remind me of the healthy and fit thing at 4:30 in the morning when my alarm goes off signaling the start of another day….and that it’s time for a trip to Planet Fitness.

"Are you kidding me" I ask myself in disbelief, “Surely....SURELY...you jest." 

Some mornings I make it there, sleepy eyed and half awake....but too many times, I get a cup of coffee...snuggle up here on the couch and "research" all kinds of stuff for this blog.  In my thesaurus, I find that a synonym for "research" is surf the web. Did you know that?

And many times I do stumble upon a quote or snippet that I earmark for a future blog  post. This post, for example, is the result of wasting time in google reader...scrolling through the RSS feeds of a couple hundred blogs...clicking on the posts that piqué my interest. Topics, quotes, ideas I plan to write about....someday.....after I do enough "research."

Ahhhhh....writing.  I love to write.  Always have.  Yet...many days the only things I write are short and snappy emails to coworkers...or meeting minutes...or tomorrow's to do list which, almost always includes..."write a blog post.". Do I? Most day...nope.

Why? I have an abundance of things to say, share, explore, discuss, muse about.  Part of it is time...part of it is motivation...procrastination...haphazard organization. 

I've come upon a similar message in many of the things I've read lately. (Serendipity?) The bloggers version of the Nike slogan.  Just write.  Just do it.  And today, in post on a blog called Write Anyway...penned by an author named Alice Bradley I found the following quote.....

….and if you write a little every day, you end up–well, a lot farther along than if you had written nothing.

In other words...you will still be "lapping everyone sitting on the couch."

It's not just about writing...or dieting...or running either.  Let's think slow and steady here (as in wins they race), the tortoise and the hare...the ant and the grasshopper. Steady, sustained effort moves us ever closer to our goals.

Following is the quote in it's entirety....

If I wrote a little bit every day, I discovered, I could actually get a decent amount done. Maybe not AUSTER-LEVEL CONTENT OUTPUT (Sorry for the caps lock, still mad). But a little, and if you write a little every day, you end up–well, a lot farther along than if you had written nothing. So my genius strategy was (and is): write as much as I can. If I can fit in a half hour, so be it. An hour is spectacular. That’s usually the best I can manage. And it’s fine.

Check out the article....and the blog

Well is he?

IS GOD IN EVERY MAN?

So…is he?  Is God in every man?  Bad guy, good guy? The guy across the street…the guy in the next office?  The guy who cuts you off at the intersection?  Does God dwell in every butcher, baker, candlestick maker?

The Bible says that he is the light that lights every man who comes into the world.  That’s pretty clear, no?  Every man. It is one of the mysteries of the Gospel that Paul talks about. Behold…I tell you a mystery.  The christ in you, the hope of glory. 

Preston Eby has a unique way of answering that question….of explaining the “christ in you.”

It is like a man who is very accomplished in a certain field, a doctor, lawyer, or scientist.  He has everything, and is at the top of the world.  Then he becomes an alcoholic.  In time he loses all – his wife, family, house, money, job – and becomes a drunken derelict, unwashed, unshaven, unkempt, lying in the gutter surrounded by wine bottles.  Now, the talent, ability, wisdom, knowledge, etc. that he once possessed IS STILL THERE.  It is distorted, disrupted and destroyed by alcohol. 

He goes on to say….

I see God in every man as a SEED.  According to Paul on Mars hill all men are "the offspring of God."  This seed of God is in every man, in man's spirit, for man is body, soul and spirit.  From whence came man's spirit – from the dust of the ground?  No!  the spirit came out of God.  But it must germinate, be quickened.  Just as it takes the rain and the sun to germinate the seed in a farmer's field, so it requires the SPIRIT and the WORD falling into the soil of a man's heart to germinate the seed of God, thus producing the miracle of RE-GENERATION.  A seed does not produce what it is until it germinates and grows.  That is why you do not see the life of God being produced in unquickened men, although the seed of God is in them.

Just prayed to a god that I don’t believe in….

After a year long (and then some) hiatus, I’ve been hitting the gym just about every morning. I’ve been getting up early (as usual) but instead of lollygagging around on the internet sipping a strong “not for wimps” cup of coffee for an hour or more, I’ve been heading out to my cold, frost covered car and driving to Planet Fitness.  Once there, I read the blogs I’ve saved in google reader and other miscellaneous stuff I’ve earmarked to read…on my Kindle 3 while pedaling or hoofing it on the treadmill.  Killing two birds with one stone.

I suspect some insights and thoughts are a result of the endorphins that are circulating through my system.  I’ve read there is a difference in the way the brain processes thoughts when you are exercising.

I’ve gotten so many ideas for blog posts, I’m pondering a new  “at the gym” tag. We’ll see.  No telling how long this early morning exercise resolution will hang on. 

The idea for this post came, not from google reader or anything saved on my kindle, but from the Planet Fitness music blaring from their speakers.  Usually an annoyance that fades to the background, these lyrics captured my attention. 

“I’m still alive but I’m barely breathing”

“Just prayed to a god that I don’t believe in”

The song is called Breakeven from The Script.  It is an ode to lost love.  An “I’m dying here while you are out there living it up” song.  The song emphasizes that he is “falling to pieces.”

It made me think about how often we turn to the god that we “don’t believe in” when our world is crashing down around us and we are “falling to pieces.” 

Wasn’t is C.S. Lewis, no stranger to incredible pain when he lost his beloved wife, Joy, who penned the words

But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world. --C.S. Lewis

And George MacDonald said this

As cold as everything looks in winter, the sun has not forsaken us. He has only drawn away for a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him. --George MacDonald

And there is the oft repeated “no atheists in foxholes” quote.

I won’t get into the perpetual, seemingly unanswerable question of whether God merely allows or directly causes our suffering.  I suspect it’s a bit of both and not strictly an either or thing.  But he uses our distress as his megaphone to break thought our deafness.  Many times when we have nowhere else to go, we turnj to the god that we don’t believe in….and find, to our utter amazement, that he is indeed there. 

My “testimony” is a variation of that very theme. 

I’m including a video of the song in this post.  Videos come and go on You Tube, so it will inevitably become a dead link.  I think it’s really interesting what they do with the photographs in the video. 

 

Weekly Quotes….on (non) violence

Just went back to work yesterday after being off for 9 days.  Keith and I were on vacation…sort of….very busy.  His dad was here for the week…his annual late summer visit during the Little League World Series here in Williamsport (the town’s claim to fame) That involved some day trips here and there…and we took Emily off to college…..a bittersweet day. 

I thought I would get all kinds of posts written.  Not.  I have pondered starting a weekly series kind of thing…one a round up of interesting websites….another a round up of interesting quotes that I’ve come across in my web journeys.  I take a lot of web journeys and find all kinds of really interesting stuff buried in cyber space.  So…today, perhaps marks the beginning of the quotes of the week round up.   Notable Quotables?  Notes, Quotes and Anecdotes (stole that title idea from Keith)  Whatever.  Following are a few quotes I came across. Since I’ve been frequenting peacekeeping websites these past few weeks, the quotes have a nonviolent peacekeeping tone…..

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. ~David Friedman

All murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.
-Voltaire

"Only in America can you be pro-death penalty, pro-war, pro-unmanned drone bombs, pro-nuclear weapons, pro-guns, pro-torture, pro-land mines, and still call yourself 'pro-life.'” ~ John Fugelsang

 

If you're a Christian who supports killing your enemies and torture, you have to come up with a new name for yourself.
...Christians have been lawyering the bible to try to figure out how "love thy neighbor" can mean "hate thy neighbor" and how "turn the other cheek" can mean "s***w you, I'm buying space lasers". Martin Luther King gets to call himself a Christian because he actually practiced loving his enemies.
...Jesus lays on that hippy stuff pretty thick. He has lines like "Do not repay evil with evil" and "Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you." Really. It's in that book you hold up when you scream at gay people. And not to put too fine a point on it, but "non-violence" was kinda Jesus' trademark. Kinda his big thing. To not follow that part of it is like joining Greenpeace and hating whales. Bill Maher