This is Bill's favorite verse for getting through hard times:
Philippians 4:19, KJV
But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
In the dark pit he came to know the living God
There is an old story about a man who accidentally fell into a deep pit when wandering in a field behind his home. Unable to climb out on his own, he was stranded there for more than two days and nights before someone finally happened by and saved him. Though the event had been somewhat traumatic, the solitude he experienced had been quite fruitful. For it was in that dark pit that he pondered and prayed and came to know the living God.
On the day of his rescue, he came out of that hole a new man. His mind was renewed; his soul refreshed; and his perspective was Spirit-filled. Immediately, he became convinced that such divine understanding was meant to be shared. And so he began a new mission. Each week, so that others might deepen their own relationship with God, he would take someone to that field behind his home - and push them into the pit.
Unlike the man in the story, I do recognize that no two people experience God in the same way.
from:
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal
/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2910
WE'VE HAD DESSERT
Biblical Malnutrition & Today's Episcopal Church
By Charles W. Slaton, Jr.
http://www.haddessert.com/
On the day of his rescue, he came out of that hole a new man. His mind was renewed; his soul refreshed; and his perspective was Spirit-filled. Immediately, he became convinced that such divine understanding was meant to be shared. And so he began a new mission. Each week, so that others might deepen their own relationship with God, he would take someone to that field behind his home - and push them into the pit.
Unlike the man in the story, I do recognize that no two people experience God in the same way.
from:
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal
/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2910
WE'VE HAD DESSERT
Biblical Malnutrition & Today's Episcopal Church
By Charles W. Slaton, Jr.
http://www.haddessert.com/
Problem: a brilliantly disguised Opportunity
Behind every problem is a brilliantly disguised opportunity.
~ John Gardner
(heard at Wharton)
~ John Gardner
(heard at Wharton)
Crisis: only the end of an illusion
"It may look like a crisis, but it's only the end of an illusion."
Gerald M. Weinberg
Secrets of Consulting
Gerald M. Weinberg
Secrets of Consulting
Crisis: the place where new life is born
"In Hebrew, the word mashber [crisis in English] refers [also] to the place where the woman sits to give birth, the place where new life is born, and that in my opinion is what is happening to us - mashber, rather than shever [rupture]. There will be a birth here of a new identity..."
Yohanan Ben-Yaakov
quoted in
More Jewish, less Israeli by Yair Sheleg
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/615342.html
Yohanan Ben-Yaakov
quoted in
More Jewish, less Israeli by Yair Sheleg
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/615342.html
Monday, August 15, 2005
Zest, Joy, One Can Only Be Delighted
startribune.com
Pope hopes trip will bring spiritual renewal for Europe
Frances D'emilio
Associated Press
Published August 15, 2005
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict voiced hope that his upcoming trip to his native Germany for a youth gathering will spur a new European wave of faith to counter what he described as a spiritual "fatigue" on the continent.
In the interview with Vatican Radio's German edition that was broadcast Sunday, the pope also said, "Providence wanted my first trip abroad to take me to Germany."
Benedict will fly to Cologne on Thursday to begin a four-day visit for World Youth Day, a Catholic jamboree of rallies and religious services with young people. His predecessor, Polish-born John Paul II, had announced the choice of Cologne for the event, which is held every couple of years in a different part of the world and draws hundreds of thousands of participants.
He said the goal of the event was "a wave of new faith among young people, especially the youth in Germany and Europe."
In Germany, "many Christian things occur, but there is also a great fatigue, and we are so concerned with structural questions that the zest and the joy of faith are missing," the pontiff said.
"If this zest, this joy, to know Christ would come alive again and give the church in Germany and Europe a new dynamic, then I think the aim ... would be achieved."
Vatican Radio provided an English translation of the 15-minute interview, which was conducted in Castel Gandolfo, the pope's summer palace in the Alban Hills outside of Rome.
Benedict voiced hope that Cologne would spur the "old continent" to look beyond the "missed opportunities in European history" to "rediscover the truth, purity and greatness which gives us our future." He did not say what he believed Europe had done wrong.
During the trip to Germany, Benedict will meet with Muslim and Jewish groups, and he will visit a Cologne synagogue wrecked in the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom and rebuilt in the 1950s.
Of the German pilgrimage, the 78-year-old Benedict said: "I would not have dared to have initiated it. But if the Almighty God decides to do something like that to you, then one can only be delighted."
© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
http://www.startribune.com/stories
/484/5559989.html
Pope hopes trip will bring spiritual renewal for Europe
Frances D'emilio
Associated Press
Published August 15, 2005
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict voiced hope that his upcoming trip to his native Germany for a youth gathering will spur a new European wave of faith to counter what he described as a spiritual "fatigue" on the continent.
In the interview with Vatican Radio's German edition that was broadcast Sunday, the pope also said, "Providence wanted my first trip abroad to take me to Germany."
Benedict will fly to Cologne on Thursday to begin a four-day visit for World Youth Day, a Catholic jamboree of rallies and religious services with young people. His predecessor, Polish-born John Paul II, had announced the choice of Cologne for the event, which is held every couple of years in a different part of the world and draws hundreds of thousands of participants.
He said the goal of the event was "a wave of new faith among young people, especially the youth in Germany and Europe."
In Germany, "many Christian things occur, but there is also a great fatigue, and we are so concerned with structural questions that the zest and the joy of faith are missing," the pontiff said.
"If this zest, this joy, to know Christ would come alive again and give the church in Germany and Europe a new dynamic, then I think the aim ... would be achieved."
Vatican Radio provided an English translation of the 15-minute interview, which was conducted in Castel Gandolfo, the pope's summer palace in the Alban Hills outside of Rome.
Benedict voiced hope that Cologne would spur the "old continent" to look beyond the "missed opportunities in European history" to "rediscover the truth, purity and greatness which gives us our future." He did not say what he believed Europe had done wrong.
During the trip to Germany, Benedict will meet with Muslim and Jewish groups, and he will visit a Cologne synagogue wrecked in the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom and rebuilt in the 1950s.
Of the German pilgrimage, the 78-year-old Benedict said: "I would not have dared to have initiated it. But if the Almighty God decides to do something like that to you, then one can only be delighted."
© Copyright 2005 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
http://www.startribune.com/stories
/484/5559989.html
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Native American Religions
Native American Religions
Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson [1929]
The classic cross-cultural Native American folklore study.
Walam Olum excerpt from The Lenâpé and Their Legends, by Samuel G. Brinton. Brinton's Library of Aboriginal Literature number V. Phildelphia [1885]. This is one of the only indigenous pre-contact written texts available from North America. Long controversial as to its authenticity, but a key document nevertheless. With pictographs, Delaware and English translation.
The Soul of the Indian by Charles Eastman [1911]
Indian Why Stories by Frank Linderman [1915]
Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa [1901]
Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie L. McLaughlin [1916]
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books
/native_american/
Tales of the North American Indians by Stith Thompson [1929]
The classic cross-cultural Native American folklore study.
Walam Olum excerpt from The Lenâpé and Their Legends, by Samuel G. Brinton. Brinton's Library of Aboriginal Literature number V. Phildelphia [1885]. This is one of the only indigenous pre-contact written texts available from North America. Long controversial as to its authenticity, but a key document nevertheless. With pictographs, Delaware and English translation.
The Soul of the Indian by Charles Eastman [1911]
Indian Why Stories by Frank Linderman [1915]
Old Indian Legends by Zitkala-Sa [1901]
Myths and Legends of the Sioux by Marie L. McLaughlin [1916]
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books
/native_american/
neither heaven has created nor hell seen any that can daunt or intimidate me
Don Quixote:
"neither heaven has created nor hell seen any that can daunt or intimidate me . . ."
Part I: Chapter 46
Don Quixote -- by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books
/Don_Quixote/DonQuixoteI46_1.shtml
"Hell has not seen, nor heaven created, the one who can prevail against me!"
--Peter O'Toole as Don Quixote de la Mancha in MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
"'Life as it is.' I have lived for over forty years and I've seen 'life as it is'. Pain. Misery. Cruelty beyond belief. I've heard all the voices of God's noblest creature -- moans from bundles of filth in the street. I've been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them at the last moment. These were men who saw 'life as it is,' but they died despairing. No glory. No bray of last words. Only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning, 'Why?' I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. But maddest of all -- to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"
--Peter O'Toole as Miguel de Cervantes in MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
www.reelclassics.com/Actors/O'Toole/otoole2.htm
"neither heaven has created nor hell seen any that can daunt or intimidate me . . ."
Part I: Chapter 46
Don Quixote -- by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books
/Don_Quixote/DonQuixoteI46_1.shtml
"Hell has not seen, nor heaven created, the one who can prevail against me!"
--Peter O'Toole as Don Quixote de la Mancha in MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
"'Life as it is.' I have lived for over forty years and I've seen 'life as it is'. Pain. Misery. Cruelty beyond belief. I've heard all the voices of God's noblest creature -- moans from bundles of filth in the street. I've been a soldier and a slave. I've seen my comrades fall in battle or die more slowly under the lash in Africa. I've held them at the last moment. These were men who saw 'life as it is,' but they died despairing. No glory. No bray of last words. Only their eyes, filled with confusion, questioning, 'Why?' I do not think they were asking why they were dying, but why they had ever lived. When life itself seems lunatic, who knows where madness lies? Perhaps to be too practical is madness. To surrender dreams, this may be madness. To seek treasure where there is only trash. Too much sanity may be madness. But maddest of all -- to see life as it is, and not as it should be!"
--Peter O'Toole as Miguel de Cervantes in MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972)
www.reelclassics.com/Actors/O'Toole/otoole2.htm
Thursday, August 04, 2005
"sozo" - healed, restored, saved
"... the Greek word sozo, which is usually translated "saved," can also mean healed, restored, that sort of thing. So the conventional translation narrows the meaning of the word in a way that can create false expectations. I thought he should be aware that grace is not so poor a thing that it cannot present itself in any number of ways."
Gilead, p. 239-40, Marilynne Robinson, 2004
Gilead, p. 239-40, Marilynne Robinson, 2004
There is no justice in love -- it outlasts your grievances
the prodigal son leaves his dying father:
"Jack is leaving. Glory was so upset with him that she came to talk to me about it. She has sent out the alarm to the brothers and sisters, that they must all desist from their humanitarian labors and come home. She believes old Boughton can't be long for this world. "How could he possibly leave now!" she says. That's a fair question, I suppose, but I think I know the answer to it. The house will fill up with those estimable people and their husbands and wives and their pretty children. How could he be there in the midst of it all with that sad and splendid treasure in his heart?--I also have a wife and a child.
"I can tell you this, that if I'd married some rosy dame and she had given me ten children and they had each given me ten grandchildren, I'd leave them all, on Christmas Eve, on the coldest night of the world, and walk a thousand miles just for the sight of your face, your mother's face. And if I never found you, my comfort would be in that hope, my lonely and singular hope, which could not exist in the whole of Creation except in my heart and in the heart of the Lord. That is just a way of saying I could never thank God sufficiently for the splendor He has hidden from the world--your mother excepted, of course--and revealed to me in your sweetly ordinary face. Those kind Boughton brothers and sisters would be ashamed of the wealth of their lives beside the seeming poverty of Jack's life, and he would utterly and bitterly prefer what he had lost to everything they had. That is not a tolerable state of mind to be in, as I am well aware.
"And old Boughton, if he could stand up out of his chair, out of his decrepitude and crankiness and sorrow and limitation, would abandon all those handsome children of his, mild and confident as they are, and follow after that one son whom he has never known, whom he has favored as one does a wound, and he would protect him as a father cannot, defend him with a strength he does not have, sustain him with a bounty beyond any resource he could ever dream of having. If Boughton could be himself, he would utterly pardon every transgression, past, present, and to come, whether or not it was a transgression in fact or his to pardon. He would be that extravagant. That is a thing I would love to see.
"As I have told you, I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father's house--even when his father did, a fact which surely puts my credentials beyond all challenge. I am one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained. And that's all right. There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense all all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?
"It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health.
Gilead, p. 237-8, Marilynne Robinson
"Jack is leaving. Glory was so upset with him that she came to talk to me about it. She has sent out the alarm to the brothers and sisters, that they must all desist from their humanitarian labors and come home. She believes old Boughton can't be long for this world. "How could he possibly leave now!" she says. That's a fair question, I suppose, but I think I know the answer to it. The house will fill up with those estimable people and their husbands and wives and their pretty children. How could he be there in the midst of it all with that sad and splendid treasure in his heart?--I also have a wife and a child.
"I can tell you this, that if I'd married some rosy dame and she had given me ten children and they had each given me ten grandchildren, I'd leave them all, on Christmas Eve, on the coldest night of the world, and walk a thousand miles just for the sight of your face, your mother's face. And if I never found you, my comfort would be in that hope, my lonely and singular hope, which could not exist in the whole of Creation except in my heart and in the heart of the Lord. That is just a way of saying I could never thank God sufficiently for the splendor He has hidden from the world--your mother excepted, of course--and revealed to me in your sweetly ordinary face. Those kind Boughton brothers and sisters would be ashamed of the wealth of their lives beside the seeming poverty of Jack's life, and he would utterly and bitterly prefer what he had lost to everything they had. That is not a tolerable state of mind to be in, as I am well aware.
"And old Boughton, if he could stand up out of his chair, out of his decrepitude and crankiness and sorrow and limitation, would abandon all those handsome children of his, mild and confident as they are, and follow after that one son whom he has never known, whom he has favored as one does a wound, and he would protect him as a father cannot, defend him with a strength he does not have, sustain him with a bounty beyond any resource he could ever dream of having. If Boughton could be himself, he would utterly pardon every transgression, past, present, and to come, whether or not it was a transgression in fact or his to pardon. He would be that extravagant. That is a thing I would love to see.
"As I have told you, I myself was the good son, so to speak, the one who never left his father's house--even when his father did, a fact which surely puts my credentials beyond all challenge. I am one of those righteous for whom the rejoicing in heaven will be comparatively restrained. And that's all right. There is no justice in love, no proportion in it, and there need not be, because in any specific instance it is only a glimpse or parable of an embracing, incomprehensible reality. It makes no sense all all because it is the eternal breaking in on the temporal. So how could it subordinate itself to cause or consequence?
"It is worth living long enough to outlast whatever sense of grievance you may acquire. Another reason why you must be careful of your health.
Gilead, p. 237-8, Marilynne Robinson
"Can I Live" video, Nick Cannon
"Can I Live" video, Nick Cannon:
http://www.nickcannonmusic.com/
Story of his 17-year-old unwed mother's decision not to abort him.
http://www.nickcannonmusic.com/
Story of his 17-year-old unwed mother's decision not to abort him.
Marriage is the True Test of Character
"Tenderness and stubbornness make for a good marriage, and marriage is the true test of character--to make a good life with your best critic. You have many critics, but your spouse is by far the best informed of all of them."
~ Garrison Keillor, radio host of A Prairie Home Companion
(Tribune Media Services)
~ Garrison Keillor, radio host of A Prairie Home Companion
(Tribune Media Services)
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