Category: Uncategorized Page 45 of 71

A few items of interest for those looking for such.

Apple is a religion (and here is our local high temple).

Some fascinating reflections on blogging.

Not all is well with the world. Be sure to read, though, to the end.

And finally, this, in the redundancy department (thanks to Seth for spotting this):

So the Rays lost? Who cares when there is this to celebrate!

Rays and Phillies fans are bound to find themselves in a state of panic today – some in a panic tinged with despair, others a euphoric panic. But after having must-watch baseball games nearly every night for the months of September and October, what are they to do with the extra three hours/night? So, as a public service, we offer these suggestions:

1) Read a book about baseball. This could be like methadone for you real addicts. I’d recommend The 33-Year-Old Rookie by Chris Coste (backup catcher for the Phillies) or Moneyball by Michael Lewis.

2) Get some sleep, for goodness sake. Go to bed early, get up early.

3) Sketch some ideas for some entertaining TV ads. After seeing the same four ads 86 times during the televised games certainly has demonstrated that most of us could do better than what’s out there.

4) Write letters to people – some real, live paper, snail-mail letters. It’s still possible. Four people in the US did it last year, so we know that it can be done.

5) Play some games with your family. The place to get your games, of course, is Funtoysia, if you live in the Bradenton area. Robin, the owner, is a seriously huge Phillies fan, but she’s still alright. They know games at Funtoysia, and we’ve gotten some of our favorite table ones there.

6) Go for walks. Lots of them. After spending an average of fifteen hours/week on the couch for two months, you could use some exercise.

7) Grab a neighbor you barely know (or your spouse or a child for that matter) and take them to Starbucks for a cup of coffee. If necessary, talk about baseball, but if you are daring, let the conversation roam. Ask them what they believe about God, and then just listen.

8) Take a challenge and read a book that will stretch your mind and deepen your relationship with God. Check out some of those listed here. If you don’t believe in God, or are skeptical about Christianity, there are suggestions in this list for you, too.

9) There are other sports that you could watch. None, though, can hold a match to the drama of the Rays’ season this year.

10) Use some of the time for prayer. Pray for missionaries. Pray for your family. Pray for your neighbors. But as you pray, remember to give thanks for ALL good gifts that our God has given us. Including baseball. I’m serious. And if you have trouble with that concept, read here why God enjoys baseball!

I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween.

I hate a season in which themes of death and demons take over the shelves of stores and my neighbors’ yards. I can’t wait for the season to pass.

I hate as well the greed that overtakes those who should know better. This year I’m thinking of refusing candy to

• those taller than four feet
• those who come to the door twice
• those who don’t even bother to dress up
• those who are clearly adults.

I had multiples of all four categories come to the door last year.
On the other hand, I love the delight in my son’s countenance when given a chance to dress up in a costume and visit with his neighbors. (When he was five he dressed up as the only five-year old paleontologist on the planet. It was his idea, as was his greeting line, “I’m a paleontologist. I look for dinosaur bones and for candy.” Cuteness won him a haul.)

As well, I love an event that gets my neighbors out of their houses visiting with one another. And as Christians it does little to enhance our battle against the deep wickedness in our culture by turning the lights out on our neighbors’ children who only want to look cute and to get a piece of candy.

So, I long ago gave up the idea that somehow Halloween was going to usher in Satanism, and I embraced dress-up fun and neighborly camaraderie.

Just don’t come to my door twice.

We are one week away from a major election in the United States, an election which has befuddled many and which will, upon its completion, cast a pall of despair over some and an aura of hope over others. I have some deep concerns about both candidates for president, and about both political parties. I lament the polarized environment in which we are somehow governed. I grow cynical over the way that political campaigns play loose with the truth. I take no joy in ‘debates’ in which candidates simply look for pegs on questions upon which they can hang their talking points.

I am a person with fairly strong conservative tendencies. I do consider raising taxes on the rich in order to fund more benefits for the poor to be an inequitable redistribution of wealth. Surely there is a better way. (I chuckle at the dark humor of the story of Joseph, lamenting how the entire Egyptian nation become the slaves of Pharaoh as he demanded and got a fifth (20%!) of all their produce. What is our standard rate?)

At the same time, I do believe there is a role of a government of the people in the work of caring for the people. One way that ‘we the people’ can care for one another is through the government we form. There is a role, if only in playing a part in breaking up the sinful systems which strip opportunity from those historically oppressed.

I can be won by certain elements of the rhetoric of both parties. And I find something deeply simplistic in those who find themselves one-issue voters, posing a shibboleth on some issue or another, and electing to office the completely incompetent on the basis of one treasured view. At the same time I find that I am one.

The office of president with its veto powers, and its power to sway the legislative branch and to stock the judicial branch can impact single issues in frightening ways. Given that, I simply cannot see myself entering a voting booth and voting for a person unwilling to stand for the unborn. I know that the issues of life go way beyond the issue of abortion. Life is cast away in careless military conflict and life is wasted when prejudicial systems are not battled and defeated. And yet I find that there are many who are willing to be advocates for the living oppressed and for the soldier being deployed to his death. But there are few who are willing to take a stand for the unborn.

I’ve been disappointed by the campaigns of both major candidates. However, I just can’t find room in my conscience to vote for someone who cannot see the continuity between a child born and a child unborn.

These are my personal views, not those of Hope Church. I know there are substantial counter opinions out there. I’m open to them.

I am Randy Greenwald and I approved this message.

Religion is often a privatized affair among modern American Christians. We practice our faith alone, content to miss worship, forgo small groups, pray solitary prayers and not communal. To battle that, we at the church I pastor place a heavy emphasis upon community, challenging Christians to practice their Christianity in the community of the church. We need that and cannot survive in a healthy way without it.

Whenever one emphasis must be made, there can be imbalance. My recent reading of Jonathan Edwards calls us to the other side of this emphasis upon community: solitude.

…it is the nature of true grace, that however it loves Christian society in its place, yet it in a peculiar manner delights in retirement, and secret converse with God. So that if persons appear greatly engaged in social religion, and but little in the religion of the closet, and are often highly affected when with others, and but little moved when they have none but God and Christ to converse with, it looks very darkly upon their religion. (Religious Affections, page 376

I was able to return this morning to my long and slow and unsteady progress through Jonathan Edwards Religious Affections (last post here). Continuing to distinguish between genuine religious affections and hypocrisy, Edwards considered the following criteria:

1) Genuine conversion will soften the heart of the convert, a softening which will endure through time. The hypocrite, the one displaying apparently genuine, but truly false evidence of conversion, will display this tenderness for a time, but it will not last. The hypocrite will over time continue to claim the merits of Christ as savior, but will cease to be concerned about his actual sin, his actual attitude of heart toward this savior whose merits he claims. The truly converted will over time deepen in his appreciation of the holiness of God and whereas he will not be sticken with servile fear in his presence, he will be moved by a growing reverential fear. The greatest saints, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, were all bold in their approach to God, as those who knew his fatherly affection for them, but approached him nevertheless with a reverence which showed they still saw him as God.

2) Genuine conversion will display itself proportionately, though not perfectly. The truly converted will have many faults and weaknesses. The graces in them will not be perfected in this life, but there will be a proportion among them. The hypocrite will display great fervor and passion in one area, and be monstrously inconsistent in another. The hypocrite may speak of a great love and passion for God, but have nothing but contempt for God’s people. This disproportion exposes the falseness of the source.

* * * *

I have mentioned before that the sensitive conscience can too easily be convinced of its hypocrisy, whereas that very sensitivity of conscience is itself evidence of the ongoing tenderness revealing genuine conversion. While remaining satisfied of our true conversion, it is good to allow Edwards’ precision scalpel to expose real weakness and sin in our own lives.

Intriguing then was Edwards’ reflection in this area on how we can and do strangely bisect people. So, I leave you with this:

Of course any old alarm clock will do. Go to bed on time, set the alarm, and stay up when it awakens you.

Yes, any old alarm clock will do for such a purpose. Pictured, however, is my precious Boston Acoustics Receptor radio. It is simple in design, elegant in appearance, and stunning in sound reproduction. I’m listening to it as I type. This was not cheap and I was enabled to buy this one through the generosity of a friend. When purchased, this mono unit was so well engineered for sound quality that it compared favorably, and in some reviews surpassed, the Bose Wave radio costing twice as much (and occupying three times as much space on the bedside). I expect to be awakened by this solid radio for many years.

This model has been phased out and replaced with a both a mono and a stereo unit.

Yes, any old alarm clock will rouse us for prayer, or work, or whatever. But to have one which is a pleasure to listen to any time, that is a treat.

I’m thinking of taking up the reading of fantasy.

My post from earlier this week has received a number of excellent comments.

But knowing the limited readership of Somber and Dull, I decided to see if I could get the question onto a bigger stage.

Thanks to the kindness of movie critic and fantasy author Jeffrey Overstreet, the question has been posed to his readers, along with some of his intriguing suggestions. Responses from his readers are starting to come in.

Now, where to I fit fantasy reading into my schedule?

This is me:

This is me trying to write a sermon after staying up to watch game 1 of the World Series:

It’s going to be a long day.

I’m envious of our friend KB who listened to the game from her home in Vietnam – a morning game for her.