Interesting Ideas

By -
Bear with me because I am going to skip around a little bit on this. I read a few blogs and ran across some interesting stuff today. I don't have time to write much about it, but I'll try to distill my core reactions to the postings. Ready? Here goes...

1. Father Stephen had this to say about righteous anger:
Strangely, I find our century (and the ones preceding it) not overburdened with love, but rather riddled with those who believe their hatreds to be justified. God save me from the man who believes Himself just. I do not stand a chance before him. Rather, number me with the harlots and the publicans - number me with the worst of sinners. Within that refuse of humanity I may find mercy and a heart kind enough to pray for a man as wicked as myself.

Strangely I have been thinking about anger and "tough love" lately. If tough love makes you feel good and justified, then it wasn't love. The same with righteous anger. If it makes you feel better to vent it, then it wasn't righteous, it was just frustration.

2. Tony Jones gives us an interesting set of maps to contrast. It is scary, this map that compares the slavery states to our current political state of affairs. Maybe this map says something. Then again, maybe it is just a coincidence...

3. The Naked Pastor asks some good questions about how we look at salvation and which souls we should be most worried about. Even more, we need to be less worried about individuals' actions than about the individuals themselves. Should I try to stop the thief from stealing, or should I simply love him because he is a fellow human being? From a civic standpoint, laws are laws, but as a judge of human beings, I need to be VERY humble. There but for the grace of God go I...

Isn’t it possible that Jesus, when he ate and drank with prostitutes, drunkards, tax-collectors, soldiers, gluttons, criminals and foreigners, was living truthfully? Surely he wasn’t just acting symbolically or analogously, a sort of in-living-color demonstration that this is how God would act if he were here. Neither do I think he lived with them as an outreach. I think he was with them because they were his friends who constituted his kingdom. He told the religious that prostitutes were going into the kingdom ahead of them… no mention of reformed prostitutes… just prostitutes! Is it possible that we still don’t get it?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waiting For a Miracle

By -
Image
As many of you know, Trinity is in the pediatric ICU at St. Luke's Regional Medical Center in Boise, Idaho. She's been having seizures but as yet there is no diagnosis aas to what the underlying problem might be. Autumn and I are learning a great deal and I am getting a crash course in ICU medicine. Trinity has been sedated since Monday morning about 2am Mountian Time. She is on a ventilator, so the sedative is to keep her from fighting all the tubes. One thing we have learned is that we don't have control of this situation. It's hard because I don't want my daughter to suffer. I don't want her to have permanent damage from this. I want my daughter back because I miss her terribly. But I have to let all of that go and trust that God has our best in mind. I have to because I can't do a single thing to help her right now. So I pray and cry a little and sing to my baby. Autumn is doing the same. We have been incredibly blessed to have support from all over the
Click here for the rest of the story...

First Scoop...and a monkey!

By -
Image
So it's been a crazy couple of weeks for us, which makes our lives about the same as yours. We have, however, been able to get out and do some fun things. This weekend, one of the highlights was walking into town to get Trinity her first ice cream cone. Her uncle Rick gave her money on her birthday for this, so we're finally getting to it. It was the perfect day for it! As everyone knows, you have to approach an ice cream cone very carefully. You have to study its patterns, learn where it hunts. Only then can you move in for the kill... Or you can just grab it and bite it! It was really amazing how well our little girl did with her first cone. She took good bites and even wanted to share. After the first few bites she wouldn't take any more until Autumn and I had take bites ourselves. Very generous if you ask me. I think she gets it from her mother... There really wasn't even very much mess. Mostly around the mouth area. We had prepared for the worst, even to the point
Click here for the rest of the story...

More on the kid...

By -
Image
I get bored pretty easy. I get tired of the same old thing. But I discovered something. I don't get tired of my wife or daughter. Do they get on my nerves sometimes? Sure, but I never get tired of them. We went to Boise last week (or was it the week before?) for follow-up appointments for Trinity. We were there for two days because Trinity was scheduled for a follow-up MRI and they won't see her at the neurologist's office the same day as the MRI. I can see why; she has to be put to sleep for the MRI because it takes over 45 minutes and she has to stay still. Trinity can't stay still for 45 seconds, much less 45 minutes! Here are some photos from the trip: Here's Miss Smiley-Bug waiting for her turn in the MRI machine. She was having fun crawling around and trying to pull on as many dangling cords as possible. She's so much fun to be around. She barely even cried when they put the IV in her arm. She did fight a little, just because she doesn't like being hel
Click here for the rest of the story...