Saturday Mornings

There is no work better than to please God; to pour water, to wash dishes, to be a cobbler, or an apostle, all is one, to wash dishes and to...

Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. -- St. ...

Despite what people think, the discussion about speed is never really about the current state of technology. It goes much deeper than that, ...

Lord, have mercy. Have mercy on my darkness, my weakness, my confusion. Have mercy on my infidelity, my cowardice, my turning about ...

Even mystery has a stone on which to kneel.

I thank God today for the ability to see.  I was out running this morning through the woods, down a path that meandered a course along a l...

I am struck again today at 2 seemingly opposite things: - That I regularly live trying to anticipate the future - That the future is comp...

I don't profess to be a 'huge' baseball fan, but I do remember many many nights going to sleep to Earnie's voice.  His pass...

I was thinking today that when we have the courage to pray for God's expansion in our lives, we don't have in mind that His answer o...

The opposite of joy is not sorrow. It is unbelief. -- Leslie Weatherhead

The more I feel responsible for, the less free I seem to be.

The more I do, the more I think I'm responsible for.

Sin in life has damaged us all. So now what? What is productive about comparing our damage? If this is a given, what cliff are we looking...

Can't really say enough about the redemption that drips from a recent letter from Linford Detweiler of the band Over the Rhine. If some...

Good outweighs bad...by a long shot. But bad's weight will still kill you...and only good can lift you back to life.

Beloved, I urge you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul. -- 1 Peter 2:11

You will be graced with the disaster your soul requires to find it’s way home.  -- Tim Farrington

Those who cling to worthless idols        forfeit the grace that could be theirs. -- Jonah 2:8

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. -- Gala...

Those of us who inhabit the sphere of “American Christianity” live in a world that doesn’t know when, how, or even why to grieve. For us, Ch...

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it. -- Flannery O'Connor

Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it. -- George Bernard Shaw In light of the role of 'responsibility' in...

I want to stop brokering goodness with God...from God and wherever else I think it is.  I want to yield completely to God's goodness, th...

Lets not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a...

God uses life to offer humility to everyone.

We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us. -- C.S. Lewis

Several ideas resonate with me from this interview with Melissa Pritchard...mostly things that I cannot yet fully put words to. The ones bel...

Accept as good whatever happens to you or affects you, knowing that nothing happens without God. -- The Didache

Have you seen the posts at " Dawn's Random Acts of Thought "? I particularly like this one: Beware of refusing to go to the...

The great secret of a life of faith is to hang upon Jesus daily; to go to Him in every trial; to cast upon Him every burden ; to take the in...

I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to. I felt that I had worked hard throughout my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the ...

God is going to redeem every single piece of you…He just is not going to submit his plan for doing so for your approval.

The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.   -- George F. Will

More Winona eagle pics here ....

I’ve reached all kinds of conclusions about you…because of all my conclusions about myself.

The love I bear Christ is but a faint and feeble spark, but it is an emanation from himself:  He kindled it and he keeps it alive; and becau...

More often than not, but not every time, I wake up with a fairly clear list of the ‘get tos’ I want for the ensuing day.  Things to think ab...

And which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his span of life? If then you are not able to do as small a thing as that, why are you ...

AS WE LAY IN BED this morning, Norma asked what I was going to do today. “Save the world,” I replied in a deadpan voice. “Did you say ‘save,...

The Milky Way was created by a herd of white horses set loose, rearing and kicking, galloping through the desert night, leaving their wh...

The first duty of love - is to listen. -- Paul Tillich I wonder if the listening required is a listening to life and to those in it, as ...

As much as there is in the 1 Cor 13 passage on love (see below), I'm struck by is 'not' there...and what is not there seems to l...

Q:  Is 'love' an idea or a person? A:  God is love.

Bitterness & Confession. Prejudice & Love. Life & Death. ...one of my Top 10 movies.

I’m in a hurry a lot.  I find myself often thinking that I could get more done IF it didn’t take me so long to get from A to B.  So I tend t...

Love loves when it is not loved back. How can it do this?  …because it knows it is loved by another who loves when He is not loved back.

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Is trust the root of protects, hopes, perseveres?  In other words, c...

Love never fails – 1 Corinthians 13:8.  I feel a bit snagged by the absolute nature of this statement, but suspect that it is meant to be en...

We reach for a new law, often through the muck of an ever-present old one.  And, as we do, we discover that the ‘new law’ is really the olde...

I am both surprised and disappointed at the regularity and rate of change within myself.  Why would I even be surprised or disappointed by s...

What will a new year bring?  Unanticipated suffering or surprising ease.  Health or physical descent.  Or, rather than either extreme, will ...

I heard the bells on Christmas day       Their old familiar carols play,       And wild and sweet the words repeat       Of peace on eart...

...more stuff here .

Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again.  Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will...

Busyness.  There seems to be merit to the notion that busyness is a good thing, to the extent it that complements the notion that “idle time...

When I vacillated about my decision to serve the Lord my God, it was I who willed, and I who willed not, and nobody else. I was fighting aga...

Our wilderness experience doesn’t simply tell us how badly we’ve offended God, it’s also a measure of his earnestness when he says, “I will ...

Woody on Bo: "If 'Bo' is not a winner, I never saw one and I should know. He beat me the last three games we played. We...

I feel a strong need to write this morning. A feeling of pent-up-ness surrounds me, daring me to burst towards its suffocation. Expression ...

Some of what I think and say isn’t really true, I just don’t know which part.

...yes, more morning glory here .

...yes, more morning glory here .

...is was great to be together again.

...yes, more tasty colors of fall here .

Click the pic and just listen!

Dietrich Bonheoffer, after being in prison for a year, still another hard year away from his execution, forging long letters to his friend E...

We humans, somewhere along the way, seem to have picked up the bad habit of trying to get life on our terms, without all the bother of God...

...more photos from VSF Church Camping 2009 here .

...more photos here .

Mystery is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend. -- Gabriel Marcel

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and f...

Our music is about the realization everyone gets at some point in their lives that the world is broken , and we don't know how to fix it...

Remember, sinner, it is not your hold of Christ that saves you -- it is Christ. -- C.H. Spurgeon

One of the many things in nature that just about can't get any better.

Two things I ask of you, O Lord; do not refuse me before I die: Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but...

...more photos here .

Life once again feels very full. I move back and forth now in a sway between perceiving it to be ‘too full’ and simply a good ‘full life’. ...

The Holy Spirit, in the inspiration of scripture, has kept quite a few things out of our purview, to keep us humble and open to mystery. Li...

Worship begins with finding you finding me and ends with this neverending. -- Tim Koshnik

Honest doubt is different from an ironclad commitment to doubt itself. Honest doubt is painful, but its pain is active rather than passive, ...

For more scenic views, click here ....