Yesterday’s Running To Win radio broadcast opened with this statement:
Looked at from our standpoint, to be egotistical is wrong because we have no right to be egotistical. But looked at in the right way, yes, God is egotistical, but He has a right to be, because to him everything funnels into His glory and into His plan.
I’d be interested to hear the following from atheists, Christians and people inbetween:
Yesterday Rachel wrote (in comment #1 on A second response from Rev. Lueking):
I’ve noticed that people seem to go one of two ways as they get older – they get crotchety and more set in their ways or they get sweeter and more open to others.
What temperament changes have you noticed in yourself and others as you get older?
Posted in General Conversation | 5 Comments »I looked at last week’s local newspaper when we got back late yesterday, not expecting anything more in connection with my article. In fact I found a second response from Rev. Lueking to me. Here’s how our exchange has gone so far:
Me: Why I don’t go to church anymore
Rev. Lueking: Going to church anyway … and why
Me: Thank you, Rev. Lueking for your kind, humble response
Rev. Lueking: Mildenhall asks big questions, in the right spirit
Posted in Why I don't go to Church Anymore | 13 Comments »We’re just back from eight days in Yellowstone National Park with extended family. It was fun to be with them and in an area with lots of interesting natural features to explore.
(I set this up before I went away – I’ll be back Monday)
Posted in Videos | Comments OffWith the next presidential election just two years away, pundits are already speculating on who will be the candidates in 2008. Putting aside for the moment the leading contenders, suppose you could create your own “dream candidate” — someone you could be really excited to support.
What would your perfect presidental candidate be like? What background, training and personal characteristics would your candidate have? What would be his or her overriding philosophy? What would his or her political platform contain? What issues would he or she regard as the top priority?
Posted in General Conversation | 13 Comments »My son and I have been reading Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet sci fi series recently. The first book, A Wrinkle in Time, is the best-known. When I read it as a kid, I completely missed the Christian metaphors and references; as an adult, I’m finding these books full of them.
As we were reading the second book, A Wind in the Door, one line in particular jumped out at me. I don’t know if it carries a particular meaning or reference for Christians, or why the author necessarily included it, but I found it thought-provoking.
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In Thoreau’s “Walden,” he said, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
In your own experience, have you found “wisdom in the woods”? What “essential facts” have you learned about life by observing and interacting with nature? Have you discovered truth and beauty through the natural world? For those who believe in God, do you feel that God has taught you lessons about life through his creation?
Posted in General Conversation | 11 Comments »In Helen’s long-running thread Why I Don’t Go to Church Anymore, Andy M suggested recently that:
The Jesus following life is always lived out in the context of a community. For sure there are lots of communities out there who say they represent Jesus, but, by our own observation we can see that they do not.
As to the signs that some one knows God well, I would say the signs are a life with marked similarity to Jesus’ life, an honest pursuit of him, a desire and an honest attempt to do what he taught, and not just what feels good, easy or convenient, but the hard stuff too.
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Next week I’ll be in Yellowstone National Park with my extended family. Eliza and Rachel have kindly agreed to host CatE in my absence.
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