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I’ve Heard About It, But….
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My Decision
Paul Westerberg is one of my favorite songwriters. While living in the Land of Random, I pulled out his 14 Songs CD this morning and the following tune really grabbed my attention in a new way. Here’s a short excerpt:
You don’t blow like the breeze you were born to be
You die down in the trees and try to hide
Will you witness the dark?
All you need is a spark
A cathedral of torches to light the nightOn your mark, here I am
I’m your spark…..Runaway windYou trade your telescope for a keyhole
Make way for the gray that’s in your brown
As dreams make way for plans
I see ya watch life from the stands
Come on I’ll help you burn ’em to the ground….Of course, good song lyrics usually make lousy poems. But you get the drift.
The majority of people I meet aren’t living as the breeze they were born to be. They’ve settled down and given up on an extraordinary life. The Abundant one.
Even some Christians I know.
We try so hard to fit in and not make waves. Color inside the lines. Walk in a straight line. Conform in every detail. The problem is that Christ invites us to a life completely different than what anyone ever expects. Outside the lines. Outside the box.
Let me ask you ONE question: what were YOU born to be? Why are YOU here, sucking oxygen off the planet? To settle for mediocrity? For ‘normal’? ….for ‘boring’?
Me? One thing has forever changed my life. Really. My job is to passionately pursue who God has called me to be. Everything else is sin.
Telescope over keyhole. Ocean over fishbowl. Rocky road over Vanilla.
But that’s me.
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World On Fire
Before Hurricane Katrina, there was Sarah McLaughlan. And Sarah was good. Organic. Earthy and rootsy. I just realized this morning that many of you may have not seen this video yet.
Wow.
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Happy Birthday, Dylan!
In just a few days, our little one will turn 2 years old! Happy Birthday, Dylan!
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The Blogger’s Prayer
A good reminder for those of us who congregate in this (cyber)space…. it originally appeared here.
Our Father
who lives above and beyond the dimension of the internet
Give us this day a life worth blogging,The access to words and images that express our journey with passion and integrity,
And a secure connection to publish your daily mercies.
Your Kingdom come into new spaces today,
As we make known your mysteries,
Posting by posting,
Blog by blog.Give this day,
The same ability to those less privileged,
Whose lives speak louder than ours,
Whose sacrifice is greater,
Whose stories will last longer.
Forgive us our sins,
For blog-rolling strangers and pretending they are friends,
For counting unique visitors but not noticing unique people,
For delighting in the thousands of hits but ignoring the ONE who returns,
For luring viewers but sending them away empty handed,
For updating daily but repenting weekly.As we forgive those who trespass on our sites to appropriate our thoughts without reference,
Our images without approval,
Our ideas without linking back to us.
Lead us not into the temptation to sell out our congregation,
To see people as links and not as lives,
To make our blogs look better than our actual story.But deliver us from the evil of pimping ourselves instead of pointing to you,
From turning our guests into consumers of someone else’s products,
From infatuation over the toys of technology,
From idolatry over techology
From fame before our time has come.For Yours is the power to guide the destinies behind the web logs,
To bring hurting people into the sanctuaries of our sites,
To give us the stickiness to follow you, no matter who is watching or reading.
Yours is the glory that makes people second look our sites and our lives,
Yours is the heavy ambience,
For ever and ever,
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How Shall We Then Blog?
The following was written by MumJones, (Andrew’s, er, I mean, TallSkinnyKiwi’s wife…) and brought a smile to my face this morning….
how shall we then blog?
with smile we publish glad tidings daily
with giggle we reveal our mundane humanity
with sigh we mirror the tragedies of broken people
with shout we send healing words through a keyboard
with bitten lip we offer more cheek to those who despise us
with double-take we acknowledge the publisher on the screen
with mumbling we paint mysteries with strange palette
with softened voice we offer answer from ourselves
with whisper we speak beyond ourselves
with twinkle we welcome past friends
to reawaken childhood dreams
to refresh our memories
to restart our journeys
to rejoin our stories
to be blogged
and blog
with
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Jump With Me, Part 3
After deconstructing our springs and frames, our trampolines and the bruises we suffer when we land on something inflexible, we’ve seemed to arrive at a classic question: ‘What is truth?’
I grew up in your standard Christian home. Sunday School, youth choir, VBS, camp, blah, blah, blah. Good parents, good Biblical teaching. But then I went off to my first 2 years of college and took classes in psychology, anthropology, biology, philosophy, etc., with no ‘Christian’ professors. I was exposed to all sorts of new ideas and thoughts proposed as ‘truth’. I was taught, rightly so, that Christianity was true. But I was also taught that there is no truth outside the Bible.So now I’m faced with a dilemma: believe the truth i was learning in college or believe the Bible. I could have ‘intellectual honesty’ or ‘truth’. Many of my friends in the same boat simply walked away from their faith.
(How many people do you know who were raised in a religious and/or Christian environment only to walk away from it in their late teens/early twenties?)
The problem was that I was experiencing truth in all sorts of new ways. And some of these ways didn’t fit inside the box of my religious experience. My box was getting blown apart, and the faith I grew up with didn’t have room to handle what i was being taught.
Intellectual honesty or Jesus? I was told to choose.
But it isn’t really a choice, because Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” If you come across truth in any form, it isn’t outside your faith as a Christian, because it comes from your God. To be a Christian is to champion truth wherever you find it. Wherever we find it, we find Christ. Sometimes it’s in the Republican party. Sometimes not. Sometimes it’s at Starbucks or Target. Sometimes the beach, the giggle of my toddler, or a lonely fishing trip.
Jesus doesn’t point to the truth. He is the truth. He spoke it. He lived it. By His essence, He showed us Truth. When anything outside of my comfortable realm of experience reflects a nugget of truth…that’s it.
I’m sure there are others of you that have had the same experiences I’ve had. In what unlikely places have you noticed the truth of Christ? Have there been times/places when God’s truth spoke in a way you didn’t expect?
Whatever is true, good, honorable, excellent, praiseworthy, beautiful…recognize it as God’s story. And our story as well. Wherever you find those things, you find God.
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The Flood
Because of the online flood of blogging regarding Katrina and her victims, I’ve refrained from adding to the deluge. (No pun intended). May God help them. And may God help us all.
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What Kind of Jesus Do You Have? (Part 1)
These are some recent pics I shot at a nearby cemetary. (Obviously, the date on my camera is wrong…) They are a good reminder to me of how we all see Christ differently. We seem to focus on the image of Christ that currently ministers to our individual needs. The lowly, pure infant in the manger. The peaceful, serene Holy One of God. The crucifixion and sin-payment that should have shed my blood instead of His.
Before I throw all of my thoughts out here, I’m wondering how YOU would describe Jesus. What kind of Jesus do you worship? What is He like in terms of personality? Temperment? What’s your mental picture of Him? -
The Kristo
For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, you need to check out The Kristo.
