The Guardian reports that photographs that depict Italian sunbathers relaxing at the beach despite the nearby presence of the bodies of two Gypsy girls who had drowned, have raised questions about Italian attitudes toward the Roma minority. This took place outside of Naples on Saturday. At about 1 p.m., four Gypsy teens, who had reportedly been begging beachgoers, decided to go into the water, though they apparently could not swim. The girls were hit by an unusually large wave, resulting in an attempted rescue by life-savers from a nearby beach. Two of the girls were saved. The other two, aged 14 and 16, could not be reached in time. After a group of people watched the rescue attempt and gathered round the scene for a short time, the sunbathing activities of the majority of onlookers resumed while the two girls’ bodies lay covered with beech towels for over an hour until the authorities could remove them. To read more of this sad tale of human indifference, go here.
Monthly Archives: July 2008
Powerpoint Backgrounds: Pearl of Great Price
As usual, click on the pics to see and download a larger version at flickr.
Quote of the Day
And my mom said I didn’t have the sense that God gave a goose!
"You can purchase anything off the Internet except common sense," Harrison [a zoo director] said. "A venomous snake isn’t a pet. You don’t play with it. If you do, you’re an idiot."
To read the context of this quote, go to Allan R. Bevere’s blog (link below) and read the AP story about a pastor being arrested for his alleged involvement in a illegal poison snake trading.
Truth is Stranger than Fiction 2008.18 (Allan R. Bevere)
originally posted on Tue, 15 Jul 2008 13:30:00 GMT
Fanboy Post: Forget Firefox – I’m going back to Opera for browsing and email
As reported a few days ago by Daniel Goldman (see link below), Columnist Andrew Brown, of The Guardian, wrote a column explaining why he is switching back to Opera from Firefox 3.
With the release of Firefox 3, I mounted a private celebration: I went back to using Opera 9.5 as my main browser. This wasn’t just perversity. Firefox without its add-ons is clearly inferior to Opera. Firefox with enough add-ons to make it really useful is very much slower. And Opera has one advantage over all the competition which is enough to outweigh all its other faults to me.
The advantage?
Best of all, though, is its mail program. I hated it at first, but I missed it for the whole year that I haven’t used it. Opera’s mail is unique – so far as I know – in that it indexes everything without fuss and finds it at once whenever you want it. It doesn’t organise by folders (though it can) but by searches and by tags. Imagine a sort of instantaneous Gmail that works offline as well. All conversations can be automatically threaded and this suits the way I work much better than anything else
If you haven’t tried out Opera, now is a good time to do so. I have tried every browser under the sun, and I do mean every browser (Firefox, Maxthon, Orca, Safari, IE, Avant, K-Meleon, Smart, and on and on), but I keep coming back to Opera. The built-in email program, widgets, speed dial, it’s fast speed – all of these and many more features make Opera the browser to use. You can download it by going here.
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Original article: Opera Watch: Guardian: Forget Firefox – I???m going back to Opera for browsing and email by Daniel Goldman on Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:40:09 GMT
An Approach to Preaching This Week – Proper 10 / Ordinary 15 / Pentecost+9
The texts for this week are as follows:
Genesis 25:19-34
Psalm 119:105-112
Romans 8:1-11
Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23
———-
Here is what I posted to the preaching email study group PRCL (Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary) earlier this week.
In my studies and reading thus far, I find that I am inclined toward the following sermon theme for Sunday: “It’s not about the soil, and it’s not about the seed, but it’s all about the Sower.”
While I have done the typical sermons on how it is “our” job to sow the seed, or on the varying degrees of receptivity people have for receiving the seed/word, I feel led this week to talk about the profligate nature of the Sower, who goes around throwing the seed anywhere and everywhere as though he/she had tons of it to waste, as if there will never be a shortage of seed (or grace or love or forgiveness or healing or whatever).
I will also draw upon my own experiences in rural Kentucky while growing up and how carefully my family prepared the soil to receive the seeds or plants we placed within it. And how this sounds more like the Church and what it does than the Sower in the parable. Almost every church I have served operates from a theology of scarcity rather than a theology of plenty, and we tend to be very selective when it comes to how and when and upon whom we sow the seed we have been given. But God is not as miserly as we are, and we are called to follow the example of this wild, reckless Sower, who shares all with any and every one.
In response, one fellow subscriber wrote:
As a master gardener I read this parable knowing the importance of the soil when planting seed. I am intrigued by your analogy of the church preparing the soil. I do think that is one of the things we are called on to do. After all, most of us do not start with good soil; it is inevitably rocky and weedy and may also be either clay or sand. Most soil is not good loam. How do we improve it so that our seeds can grow? Carefully, over many years we amend the soil with good compost, manure (make what you want of that) and other soil conditioners. At the same time we remove rocks and weeds. We may do other things as well to get our soil ready for planting. Only then do we plant the seeds, and even then we must take care to make sure the seedlings have all they need to grow and produce fruit — sun, water, protection from wind, violent weather and animals. These are the jobs of the gardener, not of the seed and not of the soil. If God is the gardener, what responsibility does God have for the ability of the soil to receive the seed? And as God’s “hands and feet,” what responsibility do we have?
To which I responded:
While I do agree with what you say about the Church tending and nurturing the soil/souls/hearts/minds of people so that they may be receptive to the seed/word of God, I don’t see this parable as being one that makes this the job or responsibility of the Church. By all means we must do what we can with what we have and make it easier for people to respond positively to God’s grace, but the point of the story, it seems to me, is that God flings the seed willy nilly all over the place, with nary a thought as to where it might land. God doesn’t wait until the conditions are perfect before casting the seed of his word/grace wherever it falls. And when you state, “Yes, God sows abundantly, but might God also actually take care that the soil the seed falls in is at least capable of sustaining the life that it contains?,” I would reply that this is precisely what the sower in the parable does not do, for whatever reason(s) he/she has.
What would it mean for the Church to imitate this reckless God, especially when it comes to the resources it has. I have seen far too many churches and church people who are loathe to “waste” time or resources on some people because of their history, their social status, or even the way they looked. I have heard church leaders decry the waste of money spent on certain programs because they only reach a very few or even just one person (what is the value of the few or one in God’s eye is my reply, of course).
And if the Church ever seems to get to the point where it is actually willing to share the seeds of love and grace it has so freely received, it has by that time (in my own limited experience, mind you) also planned the Holy Spirit out of the process entirely.
Again, this is not to disagree with your statement about the church doing what it can to prepare or enrich the soil/souls of people. Rather, the image of God in this parable is of one free-wheeling and carefree Sower, who presents the opposite picture of most every gardener and/or church that I have ever known.
———-
At least that is the direction I am currently heading in. Anyone have any thoughts, illustrations or more discussion on this idea?
Technorati Tags: Preaching resources,Proper 10A. Ordinary 15A,Pentecost+9A,Genesis 25:19-34,Psalm 119:105-112,Romans 8:1-11,Matthew 13:1-9,Matthew 13:18-23
The Ancestry of the Humes Family
Many years ago I learned that my family’s origin goes back to one of the families of Scotland – the Home/Hume family (Please note that in Scotland the name “Home” is always pronounced “Hume,” which is what led some of the family to change the spelling to match the pronunciation). The Home/Hume family is considered a family and not a clan since they inhabited the lowland and border regions next to England, whereas the clans of Scotland are all found in the highlands.
In my research, I have discovered the family tartan, it’s crest and the fact that there is a Hume Castle. Some of my discoveries are below:
Home Family Tartan
I don’t know if this is of interest to anyone but me, but here it is nevertheless.
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Him Whose Yoke Is Easy and Whose Burden Is Light – A Quote from Paul Tillich
The following quote is taken from Paul Tillich’s book “The Shaking of the Foundations,” and it is specifically from Chapter 11: The Yoke of Religion, which can be read in it’s entirety here. In this chapter, Tillich is reflecting on Matthew 11:25-30, which is also part of the appointed readings for this coming Sunday.
We would turn down [Jesus’] call with hatred if He called us to the Christian religion or to the Christian doctrines or to the Christian morals. We would not accept His claim to be meek and humble and to give rest to our souls, if He gave us new commands for thinking and acting. Jesus is not the creator of another religion, but the victor over religion; He is not the maker of another law, but the conqueror of law. We, the ministers and teachers of Christianity, do not call you to Christianity but rather to the New Being to which Christianity should be a witness and nothing else, not confusing itself with that New Being. Forget all Christian doctrines; forget your own certainties and your own doubts, when you hear the call of Jesus. Forget all Christian morals, your achievements and your failures, when you come to Him. Nothing is demanded of you, no idea of God, and no goodness in yourselves, not your being religious, not your being Christian, not your being wise, and not your being moral. But what is demanded is only your being open and willing to accept what is given to you, the New Being, the being of love and justice and truth, as it is manifest in Him Whose yoke is easy and Whose burden is light.
Let me close, as I began, with a personal word. Believe me, you who are religious and Christian. It would not be worthwhile to teach Christianity, if it were for the sake of Christianity. And believe me, you who are estranged from religion and far away from Christianity, it is not our purpose to make you religious and Christian when we interpret the call of Jesus for our time. We call Jesus the Christ not because He brought a new religion, but because He is the end of religion, above religion and irreligion, above Christianity and non-Christianity. We spread His call because it is the call to every man in every period to receive the New Being, that hidden saving power in our existence, which takes from us labor and burden, and gives rest to our souls.
Technorati Tags: Paul Tillich,Matthew 11:25-30,The Yoke of Religion,The Shaking of the Foundations,quote
On the One Hand . . . An Excerpt of My Sermon for Proper 9A, Ordinary 14A, and Pentecost+8A
I have just posted my full sermon for Sunday on Word and Table, my preaching and worship blog. Below are a few introductory paragraphs. To read the full sermon, click here. This sermon is based on the following Scripture readings:
Matthew 10:34-39
Matthew 11:16-19
Matthew 11:25-30
Romans 7:15-25a
Any comments or suggestions for improvement would be greatly appreciated.
———-
Today I come to you with two questions for us to consider.
The first is this:
Is Christianity war or peace?
The second, and related question:
Is Christianity hard or easy?
Now both of these questions seem to have different answers to them depending upon the passage of scripture you read from in the Bible.
For instance, on the one hand Jesus promises to his disciples that he will give them peace,
a peace, he says, that the world cannot give,
a peace that that the world cannot take away.
A peace, in other words, that passes understanding.
In passage after passage we see this promise made or alluded to
I Corinthians 7:15 says that God has called us to peace.
Galatians 5:22 tells us that peace is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit working in our lives.
Ephesians 2:14 states that Christ himself is our peace,
and time and again God or Christ is referred to as the Lord of Peace.
With all the peace being mentioned in scripture,
one would think that the Christian life would be a rather peaceful endeavor.
But a look at other passages of scripture might convince us otherwise.
The best passage to examine in order to get an opposing viewpoint is found in today’s reading from Romans.
Here Paul is describing a struggle that is,
on the one hand,
an intensely personal battle.
On the other hand though,
Paul would seem to be speaking for all Christians who struggle with good and evil,
with the decisions they make,
and the actions they carry out.
Basically Paul in writing these words is saying,
I don’t have a clue why I do some of the things I do.
On fact, I even end up doing some of the very things I hate most.
The good that I want to do, I don’t.
And the evil that I want to avoid doing, I do.
To put this in more personal language,
and to use a phrase I’ve already used several times,
On the one hand, I want to do what is right,
but on the other hand,
I often end up doing the exact opposite.
I am miserable,
and I am powerless to overcome this dilemma,
this problem on my own.
If there is a better description of Christian life as a type of warfare,
I don’t know about it.
———-
To finish reading this sermon, click here.
Technorati Tags: sermon,Matthew 10:34-39,Matthew 11:16-19,Matthew 11:25-30,Romans 7:15-25a,Christian struggle
People Are Strange: Todd Bentley and the Lakeland Church Revival
The idea that anyone would think that God told them to kick a man who has colon cancer is actually beyond strange, and yet hundreds and thousands of people involved in the “revival” taking place at the Lakeland Church in Florida seem to have no problem with this idea at all. In fact, they have bought into Todd Bentley’s twisted presentation of the gospel hook, line and sinker (as my dad is fond of saying back home in Kentucky). This perversion of the gospel is nauseating to me, and I am ashamed that there are Christians who hang on Bentley’s every word and action. I would say something like, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” but I am afraid that many of them, especially Mr. Bentley, know exactly what it is that they are doing and approving of. So instead, I will will only say, “Lord, have mercy.
To read other responses to this “revival” and Todd Bentley, I encourage you to read Dave Warnock, who writes about this video in his post Reflecting on cancer healing – Todd Bentley style. There are also links in that post to other articles Warnock has written on the subject. You might also want to check out what Bene Diction Blog has to say, a response from Richard Hall at his connexions blog, and you can read what my blogging friend Henry Neufeld has written about this on his own blog by clicking here, though Henry is more kindly to Bentley and the Lakeland revival than I am.
The Eastern Kentucky Colonels 2008 Schedule
The Colonel’s 2008 Football schedule has been released. Anyone interested in attending the opener in Cincinnati on Thursday, August 28th? I hope to go myself.
- Aug. 28 vs Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH at 7 pm
- Sept. 6 vs Western Kentucky, Richmond, KY at 6 PM
- Sept. 13 vs Morehead Kentucky, Richmond, KY at 6 PM
- Sept. 20 vs Tennessee State, Nashville, TN at 6 PM
- Sept. 27 vs Austin Peay, Richmond, KY at 3 PM
- Oct. 4 vs Tenn. Tech, Cookeville, TN TBA
- Oct. 11 vs Jacksonville State, Richmond, KY at 6 PM
- Oct. 25 vs E. Illinois, Richmond, KY at 3 PM
- Nov. 1 vs SE Missouri, Cape Girardeau at 2 PM
- Nov.15 vs Murray State, Richmond, KY at 1 PM
- Nov.22 vs UT Martin, Martin, TN TBA
