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July 02, 2009

"It is very important that our inner room has pictures on its walls, pictures that allow those who enter our lives to have something to look at that tells them where they are and where they are invited to go. Without prayer and contemplation, the walls of our inner room will remain barren, and few will be inspired."
-Henri Nouwen, Here and Now

July 01, 2009

Laughing with

Caught this over at Mike Todd's and was just too fascinated not to re-post it. I've copied the lyrics underneath the video.

 

Continue reading "Laughing with" »

June 22, 2009

stages of identity (in my own words)... updated

The purpose of these stages is to lead the individual toward inner reflection and personal examination, which allow them to set life/character goals for themselves. It also is intended to help guide the process of asking the universal questions “Am I good?” and “Am I lovable?” which precedes or sometimes follows the questions “Is God good?” and “Does God love me?”

Continue reading "stages of identity (in my own words)... updated" »

June 14, 2009

JP's backyard dedication

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The following is the order of our brief but extra meaningful time of spiritual dedication prior to JP's birthday party yesterday afternoon. Fifteen of our friends were present along with a herd of kids as we were blessed to pull it off before the rain dumped. Thanks you guys, for making this a significantly memorable day for us!

Continue reading "JP's backyard dedication" »

June 10, 2009

"Need to" and "Get to"

I really like this...

Guilt-Ridden Faith from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.

At 31 I confess the pendulum in my conscious swings from the "need to" in order to somehow fulfill God toward the "get to" out of honest worship of a God that is particularly fond of me. But the dramatic swings in the direction of "need to" are progressively decreasing. How's bout you? What's your response to this clip?

June 07, 2009

your focus?

Images "The more you focus on something -- whether that's math or auto racing or football or God -- the more that becomes your reality, the more it becomes written into the neural connections of your brain."

-Andrew Newburg, neuroscientist


So, for a moment let's take God out of the idea of prayer. If we're investing daily time focusing on the other, our neighbor, our friends and even our enemies perhaps the more likely we'll be able to empathize, live amongst, advocate for, etc.

Continue reading "your focus?" »

June 01, 2009

two phrases worth pondering

I'd like to process two phrases that have been circling in my consciousness the last few weeks. I've been randomly texting these to some friends of mine with a few interesting responses in return. And if you'd take a few minutes I'd like to hear how you feel about these two... 

"She (Grace) travels outside of Karma" from the U2 song, "Grace" (All That You Can't Leave Behind 2000)

"Papa (God) is especially fond of you." from The Shack by Paul Young

Continue reading "two phrases worth pondering" »

May 28, 2009

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Some highlights of our recent brief trip to visit my brother in Charleston, SC...
JP's first exposure to the Atlantic and a visit to the nations (supposed) oldest tree. In the picture with all the shovels, the Taylor's are creating the now, wildly popular beach game, "Holes 150."
Good times.

May 20, 2009

Washington Post- "The High Cost of Poverty"

Excellent article out of the Washington Post


"The poor pay more for a gallon of milk; they pay more on a capital basis for inferior housing," says Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.). "The poor and 100 million who are struggling for the middle class actually end up paying more for transportation, for housing, for health care, for mortgages. They get steered to subprime lending. . . . The poor pay more for things middle-class America takes for granted."

Read entire article HERE

Magnificent

Just another Saturday morning for our good friend's Vic, Sarah, Sam, & Em Merchant... This is like poetry and makes me smile every time I watch, so hopefully it does the same for you. Our friend, Caleb Seeling, was inspired by the video to write this article on parenting.

Good words...

  • "Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don’t do, and more in light of what they suffer." Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create." Albert Einstein
  • "Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." Howard Thurman
  • "A nation that continues to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death." -Dr. Martin Luther King
  • "Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful--- Christian community is the final apologetic." -Francis Schaefer
  • "It is not allowable to love the Creation according to the purposes one has for it, any more than it is allowable to love one’s neighbor in order to borrow his tools." Wendell Berry
  • "All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. Each one owes infinitely more to the human race than the particular country in which he was born." -Francois Fenelon
  • "The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languanges, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations." Henri Nouwen
  • "Ministry cannot be about maintenance, but it is about gathering, about embrace, about welcoming home all sorts of and conditions of people; home is a place for mother tongue, of basic soul food, of old stories told and treasured, of being at ease, known by name, belonging without qualifying for membership." -Walter Brueggemann
  • "Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get round to being the particular poet or particular monk that they are intended to be by God." "In order to become myself I must cease to be what I always thought I wanted to be." -Thomas Merton
  • "God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and God's been speaking through them ever since. So, if God chooses to speak through you don't think to highly of yourself." -Rich Mullins
  • "We must become holy not because we want to feel holy but because Christ must be able to live his life fully in us." Mother Teresa
  • "I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self." Henri Nouwen

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