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So I learned in Sunday School today that I am a Christian Hedonist.
Feels kinda liberating
Here is some more on why God wants you to be a hedonist too:
When God created us to glorify Him, this was not the needy desire of a celestial egomaniac hungry for compliments. Rather, when God created us to glorify Him, He was really creating us to enjoy Him. And where else can you find greater satisfaction and happiness than in the One who created happiness.
God’s purpose in creating us for His glory not only keeps Him at the center of the universe where He belongs, but it commands us to be maximally happy! If you seek your pleasure in someone or something other than God, you not only belittle God’s worth, but you also starve your soul of the only One who can satisfy your deepest hunger and thirst.
I got home and took off my shoes and jacket, and put on my slippers and the sweater I wear in the house in the winter. And then it hit me: I’ve turned into Mr. Rogers.
I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but middle age happeneth to us all.
A visit to my mother is usually a vivid reminder of why forgiveness is so necessary. In her mid-80s, she has treasured her hurts and wrongs and grudges until they are the stuff of her life and conversation. The bitterness this has infused in her life spills out daily in predictable and unpredictable ways.
So I come home determined to do better, and I always hit the same wall: what does better look like? How does one go about forgiving, anyway? There are wrongs I’ve forgotten, wrongs I’ve made a policy decision not to pursue further, and then — much the biggest category — wrongs I’ve collected and treasured every bit as much as my mother does hers. Given time, I’m sure the poison these spots contain could contaminate my life in the same way.
But an intellectual decision that forgiveness, broadly defined, is necessary is not forgiving. Contemplating individual hurts and acknowledging that yes, this ought to be forgiven is not forgiving. Praying in a general way to learn to forgive is not forgiving. Even saying airily that something is forgiven is not forgiving.
It doesn’t help that I’m coming at this issue from a position of weakness and discouragement. This job, like so many others, seems impossibly huge and complex. My recent personal growth efforts seem to be taking the form of a repetitive tour through the Gallery of Known but Seemingly Unsolvable Problems: Yep, that’s a big ‘un. That’s a tough one. There’s an ugly one for ya! Oh yeah, that one. Haven’t made much progress there. Yup, still stinky. Damn, that one’s gotten worse since the last time I saw it. Yuck. Shit, here comes that one again!
I keep hoping that I’ll find the key log, the one that’s holding all the others back, the removal of which would restore the proper flow. If such a thing even exists, I wonder how I would know it if I saw it.
"When your view of Scripture causes you to become a miserable, argumentative, ungraceful, uncharitable, unloving, and selfish person, you have missed the purpose of Scripture." ( >>)
… from Fred Clark at Slacktivist:
Getting down on his knees and taking unclean things in his hands was more than just a pattern with Jesus — it was something like an obsession. This goes beyond a mere motif or refrain in the Gospels. Jesus looked at the purity codes and the holiness codes and the long lists of people and things that were unclean and never to be touched and he treated these like he was collecting points on a scavenger hunt.
Lepers, women, Samaritans, Samaritan women, menstrual women, gentiles, Romans, collaborators, dead girls, cripples, prostitutes, crazy naked guys in cemeteries — the Gospels read like Jesus was on a three-year sprint to touch, to embrace, as many unclean people as he possibly could. And that meant, according to the same set of rules that he was so determinedly violating, that he was unclean as well.
[...]
“You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him,” Peter said. “But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.”
Not a word there about calamari or bacon. That’s not what the vision was about. It was about people. God has shown us that we should not call any person impure or unclean — that we should not treat any person as impure or unclean.
So here’s an invitation or a challenge for the New Year: Sign up for the scavenger hunt. Take the Big List of the unclean and the untouchable and turn it upside down and inside out. Seek out those people instead of avoiding them. Touch them and let them touch you.
I recently rejected the notion of depression as sin, but lately I begin to wonder if evil doesn’t figure into the equation somehow.
If I were to devise a weapon to wreck my life — sour my relationships, destroy my initiative, obliterate any hope that things can get better — I could hardly do better.
Barbies! What can I say. Barbie has everything. Women envy her. Men adore her. Barbie was my life as a child. I loved Barbies. This is a picture of the Barbie house where my Barbie lived. She had a friend named Midge, whose boyfriend was Allan. Skipper lived with Barbie and Ken. Ken happened to work with GI Joe, whose office was in my brother's room. It was a wild time. A lost era of make believe and innocence. More barbie to come...
Ah, the amenities of modern travel. I was surrounded by sneezing, snorting, coughing mobs everywhere I went. If I escape without some version of the plague, it will be a miracle. ::: glugs some more Vitamin C :::
Just got back from a beautiful white Christmas with my folks in Rochester NY.
We took the girls sledding at the local park, on a perfect sledding day, on some perfect sledding hills.
You can’t tell from the photo, but they were going fast.
How is this for a picture of pure joy:
Rhonda, one of my best friends growing up, lived right across the street from me. We lived in a tiny 7 street neighborhood with lots of kids our age. Unfortunately, these days, this neighborhood has gone to pot, literally. Anyway, we used to walk around the neighborhood with our donut radio on our wrist listening to WHHY 1440 FM, on your radio dial. She had a blue radio, and mine was yellow. Just another memory of times gone by...
… I’m off to visit me mum to see if I can help her shake off the holiday blues. Back next week.
We’re having our company Christmas party in The Bahamas this year, so we’ll be off-line for about a week. First stop is Galveston for xmas with my family and to drop the kids off with my sister, then we hit the beach in Nassau. I’ll take lots of pictures, but don’t count on me uploading any until we get back.
Have a happy winter festival of your choosing and may the next year be full of fun and exciting adventures!
For anyone who’s interested, we’ll be staying at the Breezes Bahamas resort and on New Years Day we’ll be taking an all day island cruise with a stop at Rose Island.
Dear Joseph, by Golden Bough
Dear Joseph, rest a while by my side,
whisper the words that the angel spoke, take my hand, be my guide.
Dear Joseph, you have always been strong,
bending to help me to make my way,
come now, it won’t be long.
Our son will guide our every step and lead us into love,
A blessing carry I, unharmed, with your love keeping us warm.
Dear Joseph, some may call me blessed,
a woman am I, but I can’t deny, that at times I’m afraid.
Dear Joseph, put your hand into mine,
the hour draws near for a miracle,
you have always been kind.
Your quiet strength dispels my fears, as no rest do you ask,
So patiently you care for us, our well being your only task.
Dear Joseph, our road reaches the end,
please be my comfort in this lonely place,
feel my joy through my pain.
© 1996 - 2004 by Paul Espinoza,
Forest Moon Music, BMI, all rights reserved
Tucker at age 2, back when I had time for this kind of silliness.
These are my links for December 21st through December 24th:
YouTube - High Voltage Nerf Vulcan.
I hooked up three 9.6V batteries to my nerf vulcan. Now I need to mod the battery compartment to hold them and build some longer chains. It goes through 25 rounds in about 3 seconds.
This was inspired by ManaPotion’s 500 RPM Vulcan mod. I’ve reached their fire rate, but hope to push it a little farther with some heat sinks and better motor cooling. One more 9.6V battery should push it to 666 rounds per minute.
I’m with E.J. Dionne on the Rick Warren inaugural invocation controversy:
Warren (is) the evangelical best positioned to lead moderately conservative white Protestants toward a greater engagement with the issues of poverty and social justice, and away from a relentless focus on abortion and gay marriage.
Recall Warren’s 2006 invitation to Obama to come to his Saddleback Church in California for a discussion of the AIDS crisis. The right came down hard on the idea of giving an evangelical platform to this up-and-coming supporter of abortion rights.
Warren wouldn’t back down and offered ABC News a delightful explanation for his political apostasy. “I’m a pastor, not a politician,” Warren said. “People always say, ‘Rick, are you right wing or left wing?’ I say ‘I’m for the whole bird.’ ” Many liberals hope — and a lot of conservatives fear — that the rise of “whole bird” Christianity will break up right-wing dominance in the white evangelical community.
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