Faith

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Shameless audacity

BE SHAMELESS IN YOUR AUDACITY

  • January 10, 2024
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We’ve all heard the idiom “The squeaky wheel gets the oil (or grease.)” Different people around the world make the same point in a way that more typically represents their culture. For example, in China there is a saying “Babies who cry at night get more milk” (哭夜的孩子多吃奶.) But exactly what is the point? Most reasonable people would say that the more assertive you are and the more vocal you are, the more likely you’ll get your way all else...

Epiphanies & Theophanies

EPIPHANIES AND THEOPHANIES

  • January 1, 2024
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  • Faith

Friday, January 5, 2024, is Twelfth Night for Christmas, 2023. You have until then to send your true love twelve drummers drumming. Saturday, January 6th, is Epiphany. The day after (Sunday, January 7th) is when members of the Eastern Orthodox church celebrate Christmas. Immediately after this, you must take your Christmas tree to the curb if you expect the city to haul it away. In this post I’d like to discuss the term epiphany and the notion of epiphany. Also,...

Seduction

SEDUCTION

si-‘dek-shen. 1. The art of seducing. 2. Something that seduces. Temptation. 3. Something that attracts or charms. (Merriam-Webster.) I remember when I first became aware of the artwork of Roy Lichtenstein. I was in graduate school at the time and there were a series of tee-shirts for sale in an off-campus bookstore. They were all in Lichtenstein’s style of pop images with amusing captions. For example, one tee-shirt with a cartoon portrait said “I’m not smart, but I can lift...

Not that kind of Christian

When Church Hurts

  • December 9, 2023
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  • Faith

American society often has a lot of negative things to say about Christians and Christianity. You’ll find these negative comments on social media or on the news, and you’ll hear them in conversations on the bus or in the breakroom or at social events. Christians have many ways of dismissing these negative comments. I know I did.  For example, we’ll dismiss them by saying, “This is an example of how Jesus told us the world would hate us.”  Or, we’ll...

Sparrows

SPARROWS

  • November 27, 2023
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  • Faith

I have always loved sparrows. They may not be particularly impressive or interesting when you see a flock of them flying overhead or noisily chatting away on a pole or power line. But if you take time to watch just one of them closely, you’d be amazed. Sparrows are very intelligent and curious. Making certain noises will attract them because they want to see what it is that is making that interesting sound. If you put some bird seed in...

Molly and the Garden of Eden

MOLLY AND THE GARDEN OF EDEN

  • November 18, 2023
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  • Faith

Deena and I have a dog named Molly.  Molly is the quintessential Golden Retriever.  She is a happy-go-lucky dog who loves life, people and other dogs.  She has a separation anxiety when we’re not around, even as some people have when they are alone and afraid. Molly is smart, affectionate, curious, and playful. Watching her zoom around our backyard is very entertaining to us. It’s like she is back in the days when everything was new, back in Eden. She is a good dog,...

The Keys to the Kingdom

THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM

  • November 9, 2023
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  • Faith

Keys are items or tools that are very important in life.  They are designed to either grant or deny people access to a special place.  For example, a safety deposit box in a bank comes with keys, without which you might be denied access, even with proper identification.  House keys allow only certain people (generally family members) access to where you live.  We lock our cars to prevent them from being stolen by strangers. But what about special keys; keys to the Kingdom of...

Via appia in Italy. The breadcrumbs trail in Romans

THE BREADCRUMB TRAIL IN ROMANS

The featured photo in this post is a famous road in Italy called the Via Appia or sometimes the Appia Antica. The road you see in the photo is the same as it looked when Caesar rode on it. In fact, the road was built (in 312 B.C.) by Roman civil engineers before Caesar’s grandfather was even born. It ran from Rome 162 miles (261 km) to Tarentum (now Taranto.) The flagstones in the photo were carefully chosen and placed by...

Your spiritual needs as you get older

YOUR SPIRITUAL NEEDS AS YOU GET OLDER

Early this morning well before sunrise, I had a period of sleeplessness. I had time to reflect on how I have been feeling, on upcoming appointments with my cardiologist, my urological oncologist, podiatrist, physical therapist and so on. I should mention that I’m six months beyond my seventy-fourth birthday. Or, as Jack Benny might have said, “I just celebrated the fortieth anniversary of my thirty-fourth birthday.” This post will examine your spiriual needs as you get older. Knowing when you...

Broken

BROKEN

  • August 24, 2023
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  • Faith

People today behave differently about things than people in the past.  In fact, many words that were familiar only a century ago are a mystery to people today.  Back in the days of the Great Depression, and the years before and after, mothers used to “darn” socks and sweaters.  That meant closing holes in the sock or sweater with a needle and threat.  I remember iron-on patches for the knees of boys’ jeans because the child would wear out the fabric playing.  Tires on a...