This Blog Intentionally Left Blank

2011-11-15T20:51:00.001-06:00

"My friend Penny’s dad says he thinks God was angry for a while after the Fall, then got over it, sent His Son, and now is pretty well adjusted and forgiving. And of course I don’t think that is exactly how it is, but I can understand why Penny’s dad would read the Bible this way. But my other friend John MacMurray says that every time he gives the Bible to a person to read for the first time, even if they don’t agree with it, they see God as a Person who is incredibly patient with humanity. John pointed out that it takes God hundreds of years to finally get angry enough to lay any sort of punishment on His enemies. He’s like France in that way."

-- Donald Miller

2011-10-05T20:56:00.001-05:00

"Death is very likely the best invention of life. All pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important."

-- Steve Jobs

2011-07-24T08:57:00.004-05:00

15 Wonderful Words With No English Equivalent

1. Zhaghzhagh (Persian)

The chattering of teeth from the cold or from rage.

2. Yuputka (Ulwa)

A word made for walking in the woods at night, it’s the phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.

3. Lampadato (Italian)

Addicted to the infra-red glow of tanning salons? This word describes you.

4. Luftmensch (Yiddish)

The Yiddish have scores of words to describe social misfits. This one is for an impractical dreamer with no business sense. Literally, air person.

5. Iktsuarpok (Inuit)

You know that feeling of anticipation when you’re waiting for someone to show up at your house and you keep going outside to see if they’re there yet? This is the word for it.

6. Cotisuelto (Caribbean Spanish)

A word that would aptly describe the prevailing fashion trend among American men under 40, it means one who wears the shirt tail outside of his trousers.

7. Pana Po’o (Hawaiian)

“Hmm, now where did I leave those keys?” he said, pana po’oing. It means to scratch your head in order to help you remember something you’ve forgotten.

8. Gumusservi (Turkish)

Meteorologists can be poets in Turkey with words like this at their disposal. It means moonlight shining on water.

9. Vybafnout (Czech)

A word tailor-made for annoying older brothers—it means to jump out and say boo.

10. Mencolek (Indonesian)

You know that old trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them? The Indonesians have a word for it.

11. Faamiti (Samoan)

To make a squeaking sound by sucking air past the lips in order to gain the attention of a dog or child.

12. Glas wen (Welsh)

A smile that is insincere or mocking. Literally, a blue smile.

13. Bakku-shan (Japanese)

The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.

14. Boketto (Japanese)

It’s nice to know that the Japanese think enough of the act of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking to give it a name.

15. Kummerspeck (German)

Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.

2011-07-19T12:58:00.002-05:00

"...O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle-- be Thou near them! With them-- in spirit-- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of their guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief... for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

-- Mark Twain, from The War Prayer

2011-05-29T08:30:00.001-05:00

50 Quotes of Albert Einstein

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.”
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”
“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“The only real valuable thing is intuition.”
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”
“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.”
“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
“Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.”
“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”
“Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.”
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”
“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.”
“Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
“The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
“Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.”
“Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.”
“If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.”
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.”
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
“In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.”
“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.”
“Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.”
“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!”
“No, this trick won’t work…How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?”
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
“Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.”
“The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”
“One had to cram all this stuff into one’s mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”
“…one of the strongest motives that lead men to art and science is escape from everyday life with its painful crudity and hopeless dreariness, from the fetters of one’s own ever-shifting desires. A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.”
“He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
“A human being is a part of a whole, called by us ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest… a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”

Compiled by: Kevin Harris 1995

2011-02-18T11:33:00.001-06:00

"God made everything out of nothing, but the nothingness shows through."

-Paul Valery

2010-12-27T07:41:00.000-06:00

"I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin."

-- Leonard Cohen

2010-12-19T19:06:00.001-06:00

By popular demand...

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."

"Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good."

"In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known -- no wonder, then, that I return the love."

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

"Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it."

"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."

-- Soren Kierkegaard

2010-10-22T08:46:00.000-05:00

"Years ago my mother used to say... in this world, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant."

-- Elwood P. Dowd

2010-10-21T07:23:00.000-05:00

Student: "Sir, don't you think that God has revealed 
himself in other religions and not only in Christianity?"

Barth: "No, God has not revealed himself in any religion, 
including Christianity. He has revealed himself in his Son."

-- Karl Barth (1886-1968)

2010-06-04T22:18:00.001-05:00

"When the time comes to enter the darkness in which we are naked and helpless and alone; in which we see the insufficiency of our greatest strength and the hollowness of our strongest virtues; in which we have nothing of our own to rely on, and nothing in our nature to support us, and nothing in the world to guide us or give us fight—then we find out whether or not we live by faith."

-- Thomas Merton

2010-04-23T11:45:00.002-05:00

"We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered."

- Tom Stoppard

2010-03-20T07:37:00.001-05:00

"The central idea of the Christian religion, the idea which cannot be doubted or minimized without sacrificing the essential truth of Christianity, is that God, who had always through His messengers and prophets communicated His word to man, at last, as the climax of His grace, sent His only Son into the world. The Divine Nature, which is omnipresent and eternal, free from the human limitations of space and time, materialized itself in human form upon the earth, voluntarily subjecting itself to those limitations and yet continuing to be Divine... In so far as it was human, this expression of the Divine Nature in the world must have a beginning, a history for a term of years, and an end, i.e., a birth, life, and death. Yet, on the other hand, as being Divine, it was preexistent and deathless. The Word was in the beginning, and the Word was God. Birth and death have no bearing on the eternal Divine Nature. Thus the Divine Nature makes itself in appearance to us double, and this double nature is called by the terms Father and Son, which must of course be regarded as symbolical names attempting to make the Divine mystery intelligible to the human mind with its necessarily limited powers of understanding."

--Sir William M. Ramsay (1851-1939), Pictures of the Apostolic Church, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910, p. 1-2

2010-03-15T15:03:00.000-05:00

"When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package."

-- John Ruskin

2009-10-06T10:47:00.000-05:00

The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.

Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship.

Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you?

-- Soren Kierkegaard

2009-09-25T08:38:00.001-05:00

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

-- Flannery O'Connor

2009-06-09T13:26:00.001-05:00

"Pointy-headed busybodies of the environmentalist, new urbanist, Utopian communitarian ilk blamed the victim. They claimed the car had forced us to live in widely scattered settlements in the great wasteland of big-box stores and the Olive Garden. If we would all just get on our Schwinns or hop a trolley, they said, America could become an archipelago of cozy gulags on the Portland, Ore., model with everyone nestled together in the most sustainably carbon-neutral, diverse and ecologically unimpactful way."

-- P.J. O'Rourke, "The End of the Affair" in last Saturday's Wall Street Journal

2009-06-03T06:47:00.000-05:00

"You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it."

-- Charles Haddon Spurgeon

2009-03-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

The demand that the Atonement shall be exhibited in vital relation to a new life in which sin is overcome... is entirely legitimate, and it touches a weak point in the traditional Protestant doctrine. Dr. (Thomas) Chalmers tells us that he was brought up--such was the effect of the current orthodoxy upon him--in a certain distrust of good works.

Some were certainly wanted, but not as being themselves salvation, only, as he puts it, as tokens of justification. It was a distinct stage in his religious progress when he realized that true justification sanctifies, and that the soul can and ought to abandon itself spontaneously and joyfully to do the good that it delights in.

The modern mind assumes what Dr. Chalmers painfully discovered. An atonement that does not regenerate, it truly holds, is not an atonement in which men can be asked
to believe.

... James Denney (1856-1917),
The Atonement and the Modern Mind, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1903, pp. 62-63

2009-02-15T10:07:00.001-06:00

"Arbeit macht frei" is a German phrase meaning "work brings freedom" or "work shall set you free/will free you" or "work liberates" and, literally in English, "work makes (one) free". The slogan is known for being placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps.

In 1872 the German nationalist author Lorenz Diefenbach used the expression "Arbeit macht frei" as the title for a novel, causing the expression to become well-known in nationalist circles. It was adopted in 1928 by the Weimar government as a slogan extolling the effects of their desired policy of large-scale public works programmes to end unemployment, and mocking the Medieval slogan "Stadtluft macht frei" ("City air brings freedom"). It was continued in this usage by the NSDAP (Nazi Party) when it came to power in 1933.

Nazi use

The slogan "Arbeit macht frei" was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps "as a kind of mystical declaration that self-sacrifice in the form of endless labor does in itself bring a kind of spiritual freedom."[1]

Although it was common practice in Germany to post inscriptions of this sort at entrances to institutional properties and large estates, the slogan's use in this instance was ordered by SS General Theodor Eicke, inspector of concentration camps and first commandant of Dachau Concentration Camp.

The slogan can still be seen at several sites, including the entrance to Auschwitz I—although, according to Auschwitz: a New History, by BBC historian Laurence Rees, it was placed there by commandant Rudolf Höß, who believed that doing menial work during his own imprisonment under the Weimar Republic had helped him through the experience. At Auschwitz, the upper bowl in the "B" in "ARBEIT" is wider than the lower bowl, appearing to some as upside-down. Several geometrically constructed sans-serif typefaces of the 1920s experimented with this variation.

The slogan can also be seen at the Dachau concentration camp, Gross-Rosen, Sachsenhausen, and the Theresienstadt Ghetto-Camp.

At Buchenwald, however, "Jedem das Seine" ("To each his own") was used instead.

In 1938 the Austrian political cabaret writer Jura Soyfer and the composer Herbert Zipper, while prisoners at Dachau Concentration Camp, wrote the "Dachaulied" (The Dachau Song). They had spent weeks marching in and out of the camp's gate to daily forced labor, and considered the motto "Arbeit macht frei" over the gate an insult. The song repeats the phrase cynically as a "lesson" taught by Dachau. (The first verse is translated in the article on Jura Soyfer.)

2008-12-31T06:52:00.002-06:00

You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!

2008-11-09T18:27:00.000-06:00

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth will be a revolutionary act.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.

We of the sinking middle class may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose.

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.

--George Orwell

2008-08-29T14:46:00.000-05:00

An Open Letter to Andy Clarke, LAB, and LCIs.

August 28, 2008

Andy Clarke

Executive Director

League of American Bicyclists

Dear Andy, et al,

I couldn’t help but read your rather uninformed and misleading comments about cycling in Dallas on the LCI forum. What I believe you meant to say was that Dallas doesn’t employ bike lanes, and is therefore bicycle unfriendly (by your criteria). A point-by-point refutation of your comments would be pointless (I already did that with the fact-deprived Bicycling Magazine piece I now suspect you may have contributed to), but I will endeavor to counter your uninformed opinions with facts.

Our trip mode share for bicycle/pedestrians is as high as 12% in the core of the city (not just the downtown area with its high ped rates, but in the close-in residential areas). The mode share for the suburban communities north of Dallas is closer to 1%. Not much Dallas can do about that… these towns seem to resent us trying to tell them what to do.

For the city proper, our trip mode share for bicycles and pedestrians equals or exceeds that of our light rail and bus public transportation system (neither as high as I’d like to see, but with the lowest population density of any MSA in the nation, I’m pleased we’ve had some success).

Did I fail to mention the lack of a major public or private university in my fair city, and the automatic bump of 10,000 – 75,000 potential part-time cyclists that a university automatically brings? Take Oregon State University out of Corvallis, and tell me what you’d see. Take the University of Wisconsin out of Madison and look at the results. Unmentioned by anyone is the dismal rate of continuing cycling activity of college and university students nursed on bike-lane systems once they enter the mainstream, either because it never “takes”, or because they take the “cyclist inferiority complex” bike-lane systems engender to heart.

The “June of Death” horror stories that garnered so much attention for Dallas cover a 12 county region the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined (plus some), with almost 5 million people, over roughly an eight week period. Two cyclists’ deaths were on a rural road when a speeding SUV driven by a DUI hit them early on a Sunday morning. Another teenage cyclist died in a suburb of unclear causes (beyond being hit by a car). Another “cyclist’ died in another county when her mother backed over her in the driveway of their home. That was it. No cyclist deaths in the City of Dallas, btw. There were a few non-fatal collisions as well (including one very serious on within the city), as there always are in the late spring, and always will be. Rumors, exaggerations, and (quite frankly) fear-mongering spread like wildfire, in large part because of Bike DFW innocently basking in the always anti-cycling media’s warm glow (“if it bleeds, it leads”) in what I feel was their misguided attempt to draw attention to the needs of cyclists.

Statistically, there was no outbreak of deaths or injuries outside of the national norm, just as the rate of cycling is consistent with the land use patterns. Some of the cyclists you must have talked to in this area, the loudest complainers, are the very ones responsible for several bike bans in rural communities due to their Saturday and Sunday morning mass training rides that flagrantly break traffic laws, and block intersections, causing all cyclists to suffer due to their selfish and boorish behaviors. And then they complain.

Is everything perfect here? Hardly, especially not in the far northern suburbs. But neither is it anyplace else, either. Is Dallas “bicycle unfriendly, with no place to ride, and no one riding” as you said? Absolutely untrue.

The City of Dallas has:

The nation’s largest bicycle commuter system based upon the principals of Vehicular Cycling, guided in its conception by Effective Cycling adherents, and EC Certified Instructors.

800 lane miles of signed, cyclist selected bike routes -- 700 miles of which are on low volume local streets -- that will easily convey a competent cyclist anywhere in town.

30 lane miles of thoroughfares with wide outside lanes.

All parallel drain grates removed on over 3500 miles of city streets and replaced with bicycle friendly grate designs (a seemingly small, yet very expensive, and very important, project solely for the benefit of bicycle transportation).

Special attention paid to adjusting signal detectors to find the “sweet spot” that allows bicycles to be detected without false triggers of passing perpendicular traffic.

50 lanes miles of streets on the inventory needs list to get WOLs when the streets are reconstructed (ever try widening a street in an historic district? Or taking away a business or homeowners parking?).

If MUPs are your thing, Dallas has 100 miles of paved trails, 35 of which serve a viable transportation function. Another 75 miles of 12’ wide concrete trails are either under construction, in design, or fully funded waiting for funds availability (tied to budget years).

You may view the commuter route system here, in operation since 1985. http://www.dallascityhall.com/pwt/bike_links.html

Frankly, I’m very disappointed in both you and LAB. Your comments aren’t just directed at the City of Dallas. Ultimately, your comments are directed at the very concept of Vehicular Cycling, and the core principals that the League was founded upon.

Sincerely yours,

PM Summer

ECI (and former LCI) #349

2008-08-05T08:16:00.001-05:00

The River's Gonna Run (Julie Miller)

I GOT A HOLE IN MY POCKET
I GOT A TEAR IN MY HEART
I GOT A DOOR I CAN'T UNLOCK IT
I LIVE ON SHADOWS IN THE DARK

I HEAR THE SOUND OF A HEARTBEAT
I HEAR A SECRET IN THE RAIN
IT'S LIKE THE KISS OF A LOVER
IT'S LIKE A STRANGER KNOWS YOUR NAME

I'M GONNA ROCK ON THE WATER
i'm gonna dance on the flood
I'M GONNA LAY DOWN WITH THE WIND
and believe like a child
I FEEL THE SWELL OF THE TEMPEST
i feel the passion of a soul
LIKE THERE'S A STORM COMIN IN
a storm of love going wild

AND WHEN THE THUNDERHEADS START BEATING LIKE A DRUM
and the thunder cracks the sky in two
THE WIND IS GONNA BLOW AND THE RAIN IS GONNA COME
AND THE RIVER'S GONNA RUN

I WANNA WALK ON A WIRE
an unbroken line
I WANNA LIVE WHEN I DIE
and shake my soul loose from time
I WANNA RIDE WITH THE ANGELS
on that invisible street
AND LEAVE MY FOOTPRINTS IN THE SKY
and feel the stars beneath my feet

GONNA TAKE THE TRAIN THAT'S GONNA GET ME THERE
ALL THE TRACKS BEHIND ME ARE BURNING IN THE AIR
THE CURE IS GONNA KILL ME BUT I DON'T CARE

2008-07-23T06:56:00.001-05:00

"I have held many things in my hands, and have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess."

-- Martin Luther

2008-05-22T08:27:00.001-05:00

"The Holy Spirit of the eternal God has come. The Spirit is here: living in us, sanctifying us, strengthening us, consoling us…. The center of all reality, the innermost heart of all infinity, the love of the all-holy God has become our center, our heart. True and absolute reality now lives in our nothingness; the strength of God vitalizes our weakness: eternal life lives in mortal human beings. The only thing that nightfall really means now is that we cannot grasp the meaning of the day that has dawned on us since Pentecost—the day that will see no sunset."

-- Karl Rahner, SJ

2008-04-22T13:43:00.001-05:00

"No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn."

-- Lyndon B. Johnson

2008-04-21T10:56:00.000-05:00

"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image."

-- Stephen Hawking

2008-02-01T07:09:00.001-06:00

Good afternoon. This is, as every day is, the day that the lord hath made so let us rejoice and be glad in it. It is a great honor for me to be here with all of you today. I want to thank Dr. Shaw for his leadership; I want to thank Reverend Thurston for his, as well. Dr. T. DeWitt Smith Jr. for his stewardship and leadership and Dr. P.T Robertson. These four leaders, bringing people together today, deserve our appreciation and our prayers. It is a challenging but necessary endeavor.

I should begin by acknowledging that my husband is a Baptist and I have learned during our marriage from sitting around the kitchen table that Baptists have quite the tradition of disagreement. Bill and I have been talking and debating since we first met over thirty-five years ago. Sometimes the decibel level can rise, depending on the passion of the moment, but as you know, that is how we learn - by exploring our differences. By coming to understand that what we share is so much bigger than what separates us. That is how we come to a place of unity and that is what you are doing here, this week. I understand that this is only the second time that the four conventions have come together as one. You are here guided in the spirit of hope by the one who is faithful to us in all things.

As we gather today I am reminded of the scripture from Hebrew, which tells us, “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who comes is faithful and let us consider how we may serve one another on towards love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together - as some are in the habit of doing - but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching.”

I grew up in a different faith tradition, as a Methodist. I know there is at least one bishop from my tradition here who came to show solidarity. I appreciate that. Much like all of you, I was taught from a very early age that my faith carried with it certain obligations. It was my youth minister who took us to see Dr. King preach about our responsibility to our fellow citizens. It was that famous sermon, staying awake though the revolution. It transformed my life as it did so many others who had the great honor to hear directly from Dr. King the calling to be more than on our own, any of us could be.

I have been a praying person, luckily, my entire life. I’m often asked whether or not I am. I am quick to tell people that I was raised by parents who were prayerful and by a church that guided me but had I not been a praying person, one week in the White House would’ve turned me into a praying person.

Everyday I try to act on the lessons of my faith, to reach that higher place. Yet, so often, like all of us, I fall short. But each new day, I keep striving and praying to work harder, to correct my imperfections, to improve on the day before and on the day before that. That’s what I’ve tried to do in my personal life but also in every aspect of my public life. That’s how I try to go about the work of breaking barriers and expanding opportunities. Work that I, myself have benefited from throughout my life. That is how I practice my faith. I’m living by the scripture that says we are all members of God’s household. That we are called, not asked, not urged, not requested, nor ordered, but called to love one another as Jesus has loved us.

Now, I’m not talking about love that comes easy. I’m not talking about the greeting card kind of love. I’m talking about the kind of love that is hard. The deeper, more powerful love in Corinthians that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

I’m talking about the kind of love that we have seen in action. The love that fills the heart of my friend, Congressman John Lewis, a man that lead the march in Selma that ended with tear gas, hoses and the crack of the nightstick against his skull as he knelt down to pray. As he knelt down the pray, that nightstick came up and down on a praying man’s head. That was just one of the many times John was attacked on his journey for justice.

But those of us know John Lewis know that he doesn’t harbor hate in any fiber of his being. That’s the kind of love I’m talking about.

I’m talking about the love that fills the heart of President Nelson Mandela. I’ve had the honor of getting to know him over the years and I attended his inauguration. I will never forget how he stood up on that stage and said how proud he was to welcome all of the dignitaries in attendance, but there were three people he especially wanted to welcome. Then he asked three of his jailers from Robin Island to stand. After twenty-seven years in prison at hard labor, he invited them to share that day. He later told me that, “I knew if I didn’t leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I’d still be in prison.” That’s the kind of love I’m talking about.

[Inaudible] anoint him to preach good news to the poor, proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind; to release the oppressed. Our faith calls us to do what is hard, to give voice to the voiceless, to lift up the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick. But for the past seven years, our leaders have gotten wrong. They’ve gotten it upside down and backwards.

They have given corporate tax breaks to Wall Street and then cut Head Start, child care and drop out prevention. They have lifted up the drug and insurance companies, but vetoed health care for millions of children in need. They have given tax breaks to the oil companies but cut off home heating assistance for our seniors this winter. They have waged a war in Iraq that has taken more than 3,900 of our sons and daughters. But they also regret the poverty, the disease and violence that afflict our brothers and sisters here at home and around the world.

Every day you perform good work rooted in the values of our faith. Isn’t it a shame when we have leaders that talk a lot about values, but then go and do exactly the opposite in betrayal of those same values. It reminds me of what the writer, Elie Wiesel, once observed: The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference. And for the past seven years, that’s what we have seen in Washington, an epidemic of indifference. A collective turning of our government’s back on the least among us. It is in every way possible the opposite of love.

When our children attend schools that are separate and unequal in the 21st century, when anyone votes on a broken machine and their vote isn’t counted, that is the opposite of love. When we see nooses hung in a school yard, when the screams of Selma and Montgomery are clouded by the nightmare of Katrina and Rita, that is the opposite of love. When some members of God’s household have every advantage while others are shut out of the circle of opportunity, that is the opposite of love.

While we may have an income gap and a health gap, and an achievement gap, there is one thing we don’t have-a potential gap. It is time we gave every single child in this country the chance to live up to his or her God-given ability and potential. That is what I have strived to do for 35 years. With your help we will continue to make that real.

It is time to reach out and embrace those of the margin and in the shadows. To usher them back to speech at the table in God’s household. To ensure that their voices are once again heard in this country. Too many of our fellow citizens feel invisible. They come to up to me, as a woman did today in Little Rock, and said, Senator, what am I to do? I can’t get the cancer treatment for my chemotherapy anymore– I can’t afford it and they won’t pay for it. It’s keeping me alive and now I don’t know where to turn.

Or the man who stopped me the other day in New York and said, I’m about to lose my job. I’ve got two children to send to college. Where will I get the help? People feel like their deepest concerns, their love of their families, can no longer any matter to those in the highest positions of power.

Scripture tells us we cannot just be ‘hearers’ of the word we must be ‘doers’. We are told that faith without works is dead. I have lived long enough by now to know that works without faith is just too hard. If you cannot dip into that righteous stream and replenish your soul, it is overwhelming, isn’t it. As I look at the work yet to be finished, I believe we are all called upon to be both hearers and doers. We are called to face the inaction, to deliver real solutions to the real problems that our people are facing. That is the affirmation of our love.

I often taught a Sunday School class when I was in Arkansas, and we talked and talked a lot about loving ones neighbor as oneself. I was struck by how absolutely brilliant Jesus was. We really can’t love someone if we don’t love ourselves, can we. If we don’t believe in and have respect for this great gift we have been given, it’s hard to reach out and love someone, a neighbor, a friend. Then of course to be called upon to love ones enemy seems totally unrealistic in the world we live in. It’s hard enough getting through the day. But it is what we are called to do. We have to put that calling into action, not only in our individual lives but throughout our society.

Let us think about the solutions we can bring about, to give our people hope, but more than hope, results. The tangible evidence that they are no longer invisible, but that their needs, their hurts, their wants, are being tended to. When I say solutions, I mean expanding the earned income tax credit and tying the minimum wage to the congressional wage so that Congress cannot get a raise until the American people do– especially those who do the hardest work, every day.

I mean investing in clean renewable energy and creating create green collar jobs right here in Atlanta and across America. Jobs that cannot be outsourced, jobs that we can train our young people to do, jobs that will move our dependence on foreign oil and give us a chance to give our economy, our environment, our security once again under America’s control. I believe we need to make it abundantly clear that no one that works full time in America should bring home a wage that keeps that person and his family below the poverty line.

Anybody willing to work a fulltime job should have accommodation of income and benefits that lifts them up. That’s how we build a strong middle class. When I say solutions I mean tuition tax credits, to open the doors of higher education, more grants, more opportunities for national service so that students can earn money to go to college.

–

When I say solutions, I mean tax credits to open the doors of higher education. More Pell grants, more opportunities for national service so that students can earn money to go to college. I mean doubling the funding for historically black colleges and universities like Morehouse and Spelman and Clark Atlanta right here. These have been a bridge to the middle class for generations of young people. That bridge has a sign on it: “You can not enter if you don’t have the money.” That isn’t the way it used to be. Some of us are old enough to remember as I am. I got a loan from the federal government when I went to law school. It was about 2% interest so when I graduated I wanted to go work for the Children’s Defense Fund and work for Marian Wright Edelman. I didn’t want to go to work for a big law firm. I wanted to defend the abused and neglected kids, the kids in the foster care system, the kids without health care and education. But if I had been graduating with tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt, I’m not sure I could have done that.

We need also to offer to young people who graduate with debt the opportunity to do a public service job like teaching or nursing or law enforcement and let them pay off their loans over time so they don’t become an indentured servant to these student loan companies that hold them in the thrall of predatory interest rates. Opening the doors of college is not only good for the young people who walk across that bridge, it is essential for the future of our country.

When I say solutions I mean health care for everyone- no exceptions, no excuses-every man, woman, and child to have quality affordable health care because that’s the only way we can close the infant mortality gap, close the life expectancy cap, ensure that people get the primary care from a doctor not from an emergency room.

When I say solutions I mean fixing this housing crisis because a house is more than just your greatest source of wealth. It’s the center of your family, it’s where you make memories and develop relationships. No one should take that away from you because of the subprime abusive practices that so many mortgage lenders engage in without any supervision or oversight from the federal government. We’ve got to have a moratorium on home foreclosures for ninety days so we can help people stay in their homes. And let’s freeze those interest rates for five years so they don’t keep going up and forcing more and more people into debt, into foreclosure.

And let’s put a cap on the interest rates that credit card companies can charge and tell them they’ve got to start explaining to people in big print, not little print, what the terms and conditions are. No one should force you into an ocean of debt because your health care costs are going up, your education and energy costs are going up, but your wages aren’t.

The average American family has lost $1,000 in income in the last seven years. African American families have lost $2,600. Contrast that with what happened during the nineties when the typical family, including African American families, saw a rise of $7,000 in their income and more people lifted out of poverty than in any time in our countries recent history.

We know how to turn this around but we have to come together to seek common ground wherever possible and to stand our ground whenever necessary.

And if we truly love our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, then we will end this war in Iraq that has claimed so many of their lives and injured tens of thousands of them.

And we will care for them when they came home, because I believe if you serve our country, our country should serve you. And you should get the health care, the compensation, the jobs that you deserve. Every day in America hundreds of thousands of our veterans are homeless, are jobless, are being turned away from treatment and health care because there’s no space for them. I think we’ve got to do everything we can to make it clear that we will tend to our veterans starting with our youngest veterans with a 21st century G.I. Bill of Rights for money for college, and home ownership, and a business, all the way back to our oldest veterans. Let’s pay particular attention to the Vietnam veterans who fought and served during that conflict who did not get the help and the services that they had earned. And we will restore our moral leadership in the world to ensure that we never fight a war like this again.

Will all of this be easy? Of course not. Will we get it done all at once? No, but we will make our greatest efforts, just as all of you have done. That is at the heart of what brings you together- your work every day on the front lines of our communities addressing some of our most difficult challenges: poverty and hunger, HIV/AIDS and disease, disaster relief and so much more. It is a role that your churches have played throughout our nation’s history. Our churches have served as a bedrock of our community, a refuge in times of need, the heart of our great movement for justice. You cannot have the right kind of change without justice. Change happens whether we want it or not-that is a part of life. What we must be committed to is change with justice, change that makes a difference in the lives of every single American.

We know that we have a lot of work to do but I come before you with the hope that this great nation that we love, that has given all of us so much, whose struggles, trials and tribulations over the centuries have both broken hearts and inspired us, that we will once again begin acting like Americans. There isn’t anything our nation can’t do to heal up the wounds that have been inflicted, make it possible for each and every person to again feel he or she counts. We can do this. We can lift up the spirits of those most in need. And our country deserves a president who rolls up his or her sleeves and joins you as a partner in that work. That is what I wish to do, to work with you to spur not just each other but all Americans towards love and good deeds and to renew the promise of this great nation.

Thank you and God bless America.

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Atlanta, GA
January 30th, 2008

2008-01-10T06:32:00.001-06:00

Heavenly Father,

I give you thanks for the gift of Max. Thank you Lord, for the joy he has brought to his parents, a joy that is your gift as well. But Lord, Max has been caught in this fallen and imperfect world, and he needs your healing Spirit. Thank you for the doctors, nurses and medical team that you have provided.

I acknowledge you as Lord of all Creation, and ruler of all things. With you, nothing is impossible. Lord God, as a sign of your power, and to your glory, breathe your Spirit into little Max's lungs to aid the medical teams and to open passage ways for healing. We entrust Max to your loving care, knowing that you have suffered as we do. I lift up Max's parents to your Lord, that they may find comfort in friends and family at this time, and in you the Great Comforter. May each day dawn as a blessing on them, and may we all see Max grow into strength. I trust your decisions Lord, but I also know what your power can accomplish.

Please heal Max, Great Lord, for him, for his parents, and to your glory.

AMEN.

2007-12-06T08:02:00.000-06:00

"I do not seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this too I believe, that unless I first believe, I shall not understand."

-- Anselm of Canterbury, 1033-1109

2007-11-20T13:10:00.001-06:00

"I fear, wherever riches have increased, the essence of religion has decreased in the same proportion. Therefore I do not see how it is possible, in the nature of things, for any revival of religion to continue long. For religion must necessarily produce both industry and frugality, and these cannot but produce riches. But as riches increase, so will pride, anger, and love of the world in all its branches."

-- John Wesley

2007-10-25T08:18:00.000-05:00

I confess, without shame, that I am sick and tired of fighting—its glory is all moonshine; even success the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies, with the anguish and lamentations of distant families, appealing to me for sons, husbands, and fathers ... it is only those who have never heard a shot, never heard the shriek and groans of the wounded and lacerated ... that cry aloud for more blood, more vengeance, more desolation.

-- William Tecumseh Sherman

2007-10-15T18:42:00.001-05:00

"Let all our chapels be built plain and decent; but not more expensively than is absolutely unavoidable: otherwise the necessity of raising money will make rich men necessary to us. But if so, we must be dependent upon them, yea, and governed by them. And then farewell to the Methodist-discipline, if not doctrine too."

-- John Wesley, from his instructions to American Methodist churches.

2007-09-28T07:00:00.001-05:00

Instead of always being one of the chief bastions of the social status quo, the Church is to develop a Christian counter-culture with its own distinctive goals, values, standards, and lifestyle--a realistic alternative to the contemporary technocracy which is marked by bondage, materialism, self-centeredness, and greed.

Christ's call to obedience is a call to be different, not conformist. Such a Church--joyful, obedient, loving, and free--will do more than please God: it will attract the world. It is when the Church evidently is the Church, and is living a supernatural life of love by the power of the Holy Spirit, that the world will believe.

John R. W. Stott (b.1921),
"Obeying Christ in a Changing World"

2007-08-22T21:30:00.001-05:00

"The world’s opposition (to the gospel) is strong and subtle. And behind these things stands the devil, bent on ‘taking men alive’ and keeping them prisoner. For the devil hates the gospel and uses all his strength and cunning to obstruct its progress, now by perverting it in the mouths of those who preach it, now by frightening them into silence through persecution or ridicule, now by persuading them to advanced beyond it into some fancy novelty, now by making them so busy with defending the gospel that they have no time to proclaim it."

-- John R.W. Stott, from “The Message of 2 Timothy”

2007-07-26T22:01:00.000-05:00

The ‘wiles of the devil’ take many forms, but he is at his wiliest when he succeeds in persuading people that he does not exist. To deny his reality is to expose ourselves the more to his subtlety.

– John Stott, from “The Message of Ephesians” (The Bible Speaks Today series: Leicester: IVP, 1979), p. 265.

2007-02-01T06:01:00.000-06:00

We can all call to mind movements which have begun as pure upsurges of fresh spiritual vitality, breaking through and revolting against the hardened structure of the older body, and claiming, in the name of the Spirit, liberty from outward forms and institutions. And we have seen how rapidly they develop their own forms, their own structures of thought, of language, and of organization.

It would surely be a very unbiblical view of human nature and history to think--as we so often, in our pagan way, do--that this is just an example of the tendency of all things to slide down from a golden age to an age of iron, to identify the spiritual with the disembodied, and to regard visible structure as equivalent to sin.

We must rather recognize here a testimony to the fact that Christianity is, in its very heart and essence, not a disembodied spirituality, but life in a visible fellowship, a life which makes such total claim upon us, and so engages our
total powers, that nothing less than the closest and most binding association of men with one another can serve its purpose.

--Lesslie Newbigin (1909-1998)
The Household of God
     [1953]

2006-12-16T10:21:00.001-06:00

    It is wrong to suppose that for Paul faith is a 
meritorious act on man's part, which wins salvation, or even, 
in a more modern way of speech, a creative moral principle in 
itself. Paul does not, in fact, speak (when he is using the 
language strictly) of "justification by faith," but of 
"justification by grace through faith," or "on the grounds of 
faith." This is not mere verbal subtlety. It means that the 
"righteousness of God" becomes ours, not by the assertion of 
the individual will as such, but by the willingness to let God 
work.
    ... C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973), The Meaning of Paul for 
        Today [1920]

2006-12-01T07:11:00.001-06:00

"If only we could agree that Scripture is 'God's Word written', that it is supreme in its authority over all human traditions however venerable, and that it must be allowed to reform and renew the church, we would take an immediate leap forward in ecumenical relationships. Reformation according to the Word of God is indispensable to reunion."

-- John R.W. Stott, "The Contemporary Christian"

2006-11-20T13:36:00.001-06:00

"The story the church is commissioned to tell, if it is true, is bound to call into question

any plausibility structure which is founded on other assumptions. . . . The reasonableness

of Christianity will be demonstrated (in so far as it can be) not by adjusting its claims

to the requirements of a pre-existing structure of thought but by showing

how it can provide an alternative foundation for a different structure."

-- Lesslie Newbigin, Proper Confidence: Faith,

Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship (1995

2006-11-05T05:51:00.000-06:00

The self-sins... dwell too deep within us and are too much
a part of our natures to come to our attention till the light
of God is focused upon them. The grosser manifestations of
these sins--egotism, exhibitionism, self-promotion--are
strangely tolerated in Christian leaders, even in circles of
impeccable orthodoxy. They are so much in evidence as
actually, for many people, to become identified with the
gospel. I trust it is not a cynical observation to say that
they appear these days to be a requisite for popularity in
some sections of the Church visible. Promoting self under the
guise of promoting Christ is currently so common as to excite
little notice.
   ... A. W. Tozer (1897-1963), Pursuit of God [1948]

2006-10-24T14:12:00.001-05:00

The 5 Es of White Rock Lake Park User Safety

Encouragement includes developing awareness and building enthusiasm for walking, running, skating, and bicycling.

Engineering tools include a variety of street and trail design techniques that can reduce traffic volumes on roads, decrease speeds on roads and trails, and improve safety for all users.

Education programs teach motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists about their responsibilities and about traffic rules.

Enforcement enlists the help of local law enforcement to focus efforts in problem areas and increase community awareness of safety issues.

Etiquette includes developing awareness of the rights of other users, and the display of courtesy toward all park visitors.

2006-07-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

"But when once Christ had called him, Peter had no alternative: he must leave the ship and come to Him. In the end, the first step of obedience proves to be an act of faith in the word of Christ.

But we should completely misunderstand the nature of grace if we were to suppose that here was no need to take the first-step, because faith was already there.

Against that, we must boldly assert that the step of obedience must be taken before faith can be possible. Unless he obeys, a man cannot believe."

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2006-04-26T13:12:00.000-05:00

2 Corinthians 5:10

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

2006-04-15T09:55:00.000-05:00

Matthew 27:57-66

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who was also a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be given to him. So Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn in the rock. He then rolled a great stone to the door of the tomb and went away. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the tomb.

The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation, the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered before Pilate and said, ‘Sir, we remember what that impostor said while he was still alive, “After three days I will rise again.” Therefore command that the tomb be made secure until the third day; otherwise his disciples may go and steal him away, and tell the people, “He has been raised from the dead”, and the last deception would be worse than the first.’ Pilate said to them, ‘You have a guard of soldiers; go, make it as secure as you can.’ So they went with the guard and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone.

2006-04-07T07:36:00.000-05:00

Bears repeating:

I am a pacifist because I am a violent son of a bitch.

-- Stanley Hauerwas

2006-03-30T07:50:00.000-06:00

I am a pacifist because I am a violent son-of-a-bitch.

-- Stanley Hauerwas

2006-03-10T05:25:00.000-06:00

When we look out towards this love that moves the stars
and stirs in the child's heart and claims our total
allegiance, and remember that this alone is Reality and we are
only real so far as we conform to its demands, we see our
human situation from a fresh angle; and we perceive that it is
both more humble and dependent, and more splendid, than we had
dreamed. We are surrounded and penetrated by great spiritual
forces of which we hardly know anything. Yet the outward
events of our life cannot be understood, except in their
relation to that unseen and intensely living world, the
Infinite Charity which penetrates and supports us, the God
whom we resist and yet for whom we thirst; who is ever at
work, transforming the self-centered desire of the natural
creature into the wide spreading, outpouring love of the
citizen of Heaven.

... Evelyn Underhill

2006-02-09T07:24:00.000-06:00

To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that
love is a feeling or anything of the kind is really an
un-Christian conception of love. That is the aesthetic
definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of
that nature. But to the Christian, love is the works of love.
Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and
what-not: it was the work of love which was his life.

   ... Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), Journals

2006-01-03T05:19:00.000-06:00

The Old Way Has to Go

¹⁷And so I insist--and God backs me up on this--that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd. ¹⁸They've refused for so long to deal with God that they've lost touch not only with God but with reality itself. ¹⁹They can't think straight anymore. Feeling no pain, they let themselves go in sexual obsession, addicted to every sort of perversion.

²⁰But that's no life for you. You learned Christ! ²¹My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. ²²Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything--and I do mean everything--connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life--a God-fashioned life, ²³a life renewed from the inside ²⁴and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.

²⁵What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ's body we're all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.

Ephesians 4:17-25

2005-12-19T20:55:00.000-06:00

    Pray Him to give you what the Scriptures call "an honest
and good heart," or "a perfect heart;" and, without waiting,
begin at once to obey Him with the best heart you have. Any
obedience is better than none. You have to seek His face;
obedience is the only way of seeing Him. All your duties are
obediences. To do what He bids is to obey Him, and to obey Him
is to approach Him. Every act of obedience is an approach—an
approach to Him who is not far off, though He seems so, but
close behind this visible screen of things hiding Him from us.
   ... John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

2005-11-22T11:22:00.000-06:00

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness.

Hebrews 3:13 New International Version

2005-11-18T18:39:00.000-06:00

Ms. Tatiana Androsov
Thanks-Giving Square Foundation
1627 Pacific   Ave.
P.O. Box  131770
Dallas, TX 75313
November 17, 2005

Dear Tatiana,
It has been an honor and a privilege to offer Thanks-Giving Square a Christian worship service on Wednesdays for the last fourteen years. We have held services in the Chapel every Wednesday the Chapel has been open since 1991. By my account, we have donated (or have caused to be donated) almost $10,000 to the Thanks-Giving Square Foundation for the continuation and operation of this wonderful gift to the City of Dallas and her visitors.
All things must come to an end. Over the last few years, finding clergy to officiate in this service has become increasing difficult. Recently, it has become impossible. As a result of this inability to continue as an Episcopal Eucharistic Service (as we were “chartered”), we can no longer offer a Wednesday service at Thanks-Giving   Square. Effective Wednesday, December 7th, our services will (and must) cease.
May God continue to bless and preserve Thanks-Giving Square and its mission in and to the heart of Dallas.
Sincerely yours,

P. Michael Summer
Lay Coordinator
Christ in the Wilderness Eucharistic Fellowship
 
C: The Rt. Rev. James M. Stanton

2005-11-06T20:37:00.000-06:00

In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

Acts 2:17-18New International Version

2005-10-25T05:35:00.000-05:00

To become Christian is in a real sense to become human
because nothing dehumanizes more than rebellion against God
or humanizes more than reconciliation to God and fellowship
with God. But to assert joyfully that salvation includes
humanization is not at all the same thing as saying that
humanization (rescuing men from the dehumanizing process of
modern society) equals salvation.

-- John RW Stott

2005-10-20T09:26:00.000-05:00

"Your prophets courted you with sweet talk.

They didn't face you with your sin so that you could repent.

Their sermons were all wishful thinking, deceptive illusions."

-- Jeremiah (Lamentations 2:14, via Eugene Peterson)

2005-10-04T09:39:00.000-05:00

I like your Christ, but I do not like your Christians.
Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

Mahatma Gandhi

2005-09-29T10:39:00.000-05:00

Isaiah 55:9 New International Version

As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

2005-08-30T21:30:00.000-05:00

1 Timothy 6:6-10 (New International Version)

⁶But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. ⁸But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. ⁹People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

2005-07-30T17:27:00.000-05:00

God, you are my God.
I will earnestly seek you.

My soul thirsts for you.
My flesh longs for you,
in a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

2005-07-27T08:03:00.000-05:00

Proverbs 1:7

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.

2005-07-07T21:53:00.000-05:00

Now, for all its failings and its perversions over the last 2,000 years—and as much as every exponent of this faith has attempted to dodge this idea—it is unarguably the central tenet of Christianity: that everybody is equal in God's eyes. So you cannot, as a Christian, walk away from Africa. America will be judged by God if, in its plenty, it crosses the road from 23 million people suffering from HIV, the leprosy of the day.

What's up on trial here is Christianity itself. You cannot walk away from this and call yourself a Christian and sit in power. Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world—and stop being its apologist.

- Bono

2005-06-17T07:40:00.000-05:00

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.

-- Douglas Adams

2005-06-08T05:38:00.000-05:00

To take up the cross of Christ is no great action done
once for all; it consists in the continual practice of small
duties which are distasteful to us.

   ... John Henry Newman (1801-1890)

2005-04-28T09:09:00.000-05:00

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”

- Soren Kierkegaard

2005-03-27T06:21:00.000-06:00

THE TOMB IS EMPTY!

2005-03-26T18:13:00.000-06:00

All	At the name of Jesus
		every knee shall bow.

	1	Christ Jesus was in the form of God, •
		but he did not cling to equality with God.

	2	He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, •
		and was born in our human likeness.

	3	Being found in human form he humbled himself, •
		and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.

	4	Therefore God has highly exalted him, •
		and bestowed on him the name above every name.

	5	That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, •
		in heaven and on earth and under the earth;

	6	And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, •
		to the glory of God the Father.
		Philippians 2.5–11

		At the name of Jesus
		every knee shall bow.

2005-03-25T06:28:00.000-06:00

Psalm 51

¹(Ein Psalm Davids, vorzusingen; da der Prophet Nathan zu ihm kam, als er war zu Bath-Seba eingegangen.) Gott, sei mir gnädig nach deiner Güte und tilge meine Sünden nach deiner großen Barmherzigkeit.

²Wasche mich wohl von meiner Missetat und reinige mich von meiner Sünde.

³Denn ich erkenne meine Missetat, und meine Sünde ist immer vor mir.

⁴An dir allein habe ich gesündigt und übel vor dir getan, auf daß du recht behaltest in deinen Worten und rein bleibest, wenn du gerichtet wirst.

⁵Siehe, ich bin in sündlichem Wesen geboren, und meine Mutter hat mich in Sünden empfangen.

⁶Siehe, du hast Lust zur Wahrheit, die im Verborgenen liegt; du lässest mich wissen die heimliche Weisheit.

⁷Entsündige mich mit Isop, daß ich rein werde; wasche mich, daß ich schneeweiß werde.

⁸Laß mich hören Freude und Wonne, daß die Gebeine fröhlich werden, die du zerschlagen hast.

⁹Verbirg dein Antlitz von meinen Sünden und tilge alle meine Missetaten.

¹⁰Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein reines Herz und gib mir einen neuen, gewissen Geist.

¹¹Verwirf mich nicht von deinem Angesicht und nimm deinen heiligen Geist nicht von mir.

¹²Tröste mich wieder mit deiner Hilfe, und mit einem freudigen Geist rüste mich aus.

¹³Ich will die Übertreter deine Wege lehren, daß sich die Sünder zu dir bekehren.

¹⁴Errette mich von den Blutschulden, Gott, der du mein Gott und Heiland bist, daß meine Zunge deine Gerechtigkeit rühme.

¹⁵Herr, tue meine Lippen auf, daß mein Mund deinen Ruhm verkündige.

¹⁶Denn du hast nicht Lust zum Opfer, ich wollte dir's sonst wohl geben, und Brandopfer gefallen dir nicht.

¹⁷Die Opfer, die Gott gefallen, sind ein geängsteter Geist; ein geängstet und zerschlagen Herz wirst du, Gott, nicht verachten.

¹⁸Tue wohl an Zion nach deiner Gnade; baue die Mauern zu Jerusalem.

¹⁹Dann werden dir gefallen die Opfer der Gerechtigkeit, die Brandopfer und ganzen Opfer; dann wird man Farren auf deinem Altar opfern.

2005-03-16T10:14:00.000-06:00

"Be generous. Give to the poor. Get yourselves a bank that can't go bankrupt, a bank in heaven far from bankrobbers, safe from embezzlers, a bank you can bank on. It's obvious, isn't it? The place where your treasure is, is the place you will most want to be, and end up being."
-- Luke 12:33-34 The Message

2005-02-16T20:08:00.000-06:00

Kallistos Ware

God does not condemn us to Hell; God wishes all humans to be saved. He will love us to all eternity, but there will exist the possibility that we do not accept the love and do not respond to it. And the refusal to accept love, the refusal to respond to it, that precisely is the meaning of Hell. Hell is not a place where God puts us; it’s a place where we put ourselves. The doors of Hell, insofar as they have locks, have locks on the inside.

2005-01-25T09:19:00.000-06:00

The Religious Right in W's America and the Religious Left in the Kiaser's Germany
'Their support of German imperialism led Barth to believe that something must be terribly wrong with their theology, if it could be so quickly compromised in the face of the ideology of war. Disillusioned by his teacher's conduct, Barth concluded that he could no longer "accept their ethics and dogmatics, their biblical exegesis, their interpretation of history." For him, the entire liberal theology of the nineteenth century had no future, and he turned his considerable but hitherto hidden theological talent towards its demolition.'

2005-01-16T19:46:00.000-06:00

Let the Christian rest content with his worldliness and with this renunciation of any higher standard than the world. He is living for the sake of the world rather than for the sake of grace. Let him be comforted and rest assured in his possession of this grace - for grace alone does everything. Instead of following Christ, let the Christian enjoy the consolations of his grace!

That is what we mean by cheap grace, the grace which amounts to the justification of sin without the justification of the repentant sinner who departs from sin and from whom sins departs.

Cheap grace is not the kind of forgiveness of sin which frees us from the toils of sin. Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.

Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must the asked for, the door at which a man must knock.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: “ye were bought at a price, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us.

Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship

2005-01-15T11:22:00.000-06:00

The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity.

Source: "The Brothers Karamazov"

2005-01-01T18:18:00.000-06:00

Go Safely

M. L. Haskins

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, Give me a light that I might go safely out into the darkness. And he replied, Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be more to you than a light, and safer than a known way.

2004-12-12T07:54:00.000-06:00

Like a Stable
Evelyn Underhill

Human nature is like a stable inhabited by the ox of passion and the ass of prejudice; animals which take up a lot of room and which I suppose most of us are feeding on the quiet. And it is there between them, pushing them out, that Christ must be born and in their very manger he must be laid – and they will be the first to fall on their knees before him. Sometimes Christians seem far nearer to those animals than to Christ in his simple poverty, self-abandoned to God.

2004-11-27T13:08:00.000-06:00

It is a remarkable fact that since the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the French Revolution, the Christian faith—with all its binding, outward dogmas—has been crumbling away. In its place a kind of unscrupulousness has emerged that sweeps away not only superstition, but faith as well, and makes people ruthlessly pursue their clever inventions, which today are conquering the world. All restraint is thrown overboard. Research and strenuous activity take the first place in life, relentlessly opposing everything else. And so Confucianism and dogmatic Christianity collapse. At the same time all the animal instincts come to the fore, arousing passions which threaten to destroy all culture.

But God must have a meaning in all of this. It is a stage in the progress toward the time when God’s justice will be revealed in the yearned-for freedom, a time when all human laws and rights will cease, and people will know in their hearts what is right and what is wrong.

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, from Christ in the World, Letters to China No. 113, April 1912.

2004-11-16T18:32:00.000-06:00

If your neighbor sins, then you also sin. For if you had kept yourself as the Word demands, your neighbor would have been so ashamed on seeing how you live that he would not have sinned.

Clement of Alexandria (d. 215 AD)

2004-11-06T10:44:00.000-06:00

The Holy Spirit convinces the world about judgment. And that brings decision. Judgment consists in the fact that the Prince of this world is judged, not people. (John 16:8–11) Church discipline never fights against the individual concerned; it fights exclusively against the Prince of this human world, who is out to enslave souls, including those who belong to the Church. (2 Tim. 2:24–26)

2004-11-04T11:30:00.000-06:00

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayer, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. 1 Timothy 2:1

2004-11-02T06:21:00.000-06:00

Then he told them a story: "A man had a bush planted in his front yard. He came to it expecting to find fruit, but there weren't any. He said to his gardener, "What's going on here? For three years now I've come to this bush expecting fruit and not one have I found. Chop it down! Why waste good ground with it any longer?'
"The gardener said, "Let's give it another year. I'll dig around it and fertilize, and maybe it will produce next year; if it doesn't, then chop it down.'"

Luke 13:6-9
The Gospel Reading appointed for this day.
Proper 26, Year 2
Revised Common Lectionary

2004-11-01T13:14:00.000-06:00

Vote for John Kerry.

2004-11-01T13:13:00.000-06:00

Jesus saves.

2004-10-18T16:45:00.000-05:00

2004-10-02T14:43:00.000-05:00

2004-09-24T05:41:00.000-05:00

2004-09-20T15:37:00.000-05:00

2004-09-17T18:35:00.000-05:00

2004-09-02T13:03:00.000-05:00

2004-08-31T18:55:00.000-05:00

2004-08-27T08:36:00.000-05:00