Tell the Truth - What do you need?

Marcus here. Kaye Torgerson sent me an email a few days ago telling me about something she’s doing over at Silencing the Stones.

I will be starting a new project on my Silencing the Stones blog, in the blogroll here, on Friday. You can read about it here.

Please look over it when you get a chance and let me know what you think. If you like the idea, please get the word out, as I think we could all use a little more support in this crazy life.

Thanks!

Kaye Torgerson

So I headed over to her site and I like the idea. Here’s the bottom line:

Starting Friday, I’m going to feature on this site a Mr. Linky. Please write a post about your current needs. What are you going through? What are you frustrated about? What are your prayer requests? What mistakes have you made that you need help with? What questions do you need answers for? Then I will ask each reader and entrant to pray for the other needs on the list. You can be as general or specific as you want, but know that you are met here with love and open arms.

What can High Calling Bloggers do to help?

Well, you can certainly participate in Kaye’s little writing project if you’re inclined. I’m sure she’d love to get a good turn out.

You could also just click through the posts of people who participate and leave comments of encouragement.

Finally, like she said here, you could pray for each other. Either pray for each other directly based on the needs people share. Or pray for this network in general. That God’s will would be done here.

I mean, we’re making this up as we go folks. We need your help and your prayers if we are going to do a good job of honoring God here.

Do You Have Cause Fatigue?

Marcus here. Over at New Breed of Advertisers, Sam Van Eman has confessed “I think I can’t, I think I can’t.”

Ouch, Sam. That’s bleak, man. That’s Cormac McCarthy bleak. I know what Sam means, though, and I appreciate his bold, if slightly shocking honesty.

Sam explores the idea in much greater depth in his MUST READ article at Catapult Magazine called Melinda Mae Missiology. The title of his article refers to a Shel Silverstein poem. (Click here and listen to Shel’s crazy reading.)

I’m no Melinda Mae. I lack focus. I lack patience. I lack perseverance. To be honest, I’m flat-out tired. In fact, I have had “cause fatigue” for sometime now. You know cause fatigue, right? Ten Facebook “friends” everyday tell me I should support their causes: “Spay Your Dog” and “Recycle Your Cans” and “Change the World This” and “Change the World That.”

Oh yeah. And this one. Join our Facebook Blog Network. (Actually, that’s not a cause. It’s a cool Facebook plugin that looks like it will aggregate all of our content on Facebook. Or else it will just be a fancy Facebook blog roll. I’m not sure.)

Even with the apologetic parentheses there, I feel bad about even asking people to join something else, click on one more link, stand up and digg or favorite or tag or participate in one more networking possibility or world improvement campaign.

There are just so many options that we start to shut down.

What else can we do except focus on the world in front of us? I don’t know where else to work on building the kingdom of God–whatever that means exactly. I’m still thinking about Sam’s article at Catapult when I make comments like that.

Here’s what I see in my life. I can be a good dad–and do things like watch a pickup softball game with my four-year-old son in the evenings. (We watched warm-up and ten minutes of the first inning last night.) I can be a good husband–and do things like encourage my wife after she has a tough rehearsal for Willy Wonka. (She’s Mrs. Gloop.) I can work hard at my job–connecting people online, editing articles, and doing my best to pay writers on time.

And I can write poetry. Which has no value in the free market sense, but it brings me joy. And for me, it is a kind of prayer.

Sure I do church and charity stuff too, but the real mission of my life is what I spend the bulk of my time on. Work and Family seamlessly (hopefully) integrated with my Faith in God.

None of those are very earth shattering causes. In fact, they seem almost cowardly in their simplicity. But they are what I do. Should I do more? I don’t know.

What do you do?

Cal Rogers

Howard Butt, Jr. encourages us to keep pressing on to the finish line in the high calling of our daily work by sharing the story of Cal Rogers and his epic pre-World War I flight across the continental United States.

Hear the story of Cal Rogers .

Pharaohs Tried to Take It With Them

George Cladis reminds us how silly it is to think that we can take things with us on into eternity. The things we accumulate in this world are not what really matter. Instead, our focus should be on things of eternal significance.

Read more about it here.

A Prayer Before Dying

Real Live Preacher has posted one of the final prayers of famous Baptist pastor Carlyle Marney who died of a heart attack in 1978. It shows amazing humility and honesty as well as a nice bit of wit. Reverend Marney was known as a powerful thinker and prophetic spokesperson. It is interesting to note the tone of one of his final prayers, given just a few months before his death.

“Naked I came into the world; how I’m dressed at the conclusion makes no difference.”

Hear now my pitiable defense. In all my sixty years I killed no creature of Thine I did not need for food except for a few rattlesnakes, a turtle or two, two quail I left overlong in my coat and three geese poisoned on bad grain before I shot them in Nebraska, plus one wood duck in Korea. In all my years I consciously battered no child though my own claimed much need to forgive me. And consciously misused no person. Thou knowest my aim to treat no human being as thing, never to hate overlong, to pass no child without catching his or her eye and my innermost wish to love as Thou doest love by seeing no shade of color or class.… Read More.

A Listening Prayer

High Calling Bloggers have been invited to write about an experience we’ve had in a spiritual retreat. Those who do will be listed here. Check back because new essays will be appearing each day. This essay is one I wrote for Christian Century in 2005 following a retreat at Laity Lodge, one of my most favorite places on earth.
——————————-Real Live Preacher

I can’t imagine absolute silence, neither can I hear it. Even when I’m in a quiet place, my mind produces its own ghostly, seashell sound. The noise in my head is a faint but high-pitched whine accompanied by a lower rumbling that sounds like an engine pulsing away in the distance. These seem to be the default sounds of my brain. It’s what I hear when there is nothing else to hear.

About the closest you can come to silence is to become silent yourself and hope for the best. Close your eyes and forsake your vision. Let go of sight and your desperate need to see. Embrace hearing and you will begin to notice the many layers of the sounds around you…Read More.