Seeing Snow Through Dirty Windows

It was the first snow of the season at Tanya Dennis’ house. Her kids were thrilled, as you might expect, but all she could see was the dirty windows through which they were looking. Tanya considers what this might say about her perspective on life.

Today was the first snow of the season! Okay, we had some flurries last week, but they hardly count. They lasted only a few minutes and the kids didn’t get to see them. But this morning we had big ol’ flakes and they came down for a couple hours. It’s too warm to stick, but we were still excited.

What was the first thing we did? Cleaned the windows. I handed Isabel and Zach a couple Windex cloths and they tackled those fingerprint smudges and sloppy window kisses. What a difference clean glass makes!…Click here to read more.

In the Dailies - Discovering the extraordinary God in ordinary life.

Stuff in the Basement

Stuff in the Basement - Writer & educator J. Schaap writes about life and the things that matter to him.

It’s hard to take an honest look at the things that surround your life. So many things we cling to are worthless or on their way to becoming worthless. Do you ever wonder what will happen to your stuff after you die? How much of it will matter to anyone else. Writer J. Schaap considers the fate of things in his piece, “Flotsam, Jetsam.”

Yesterday was “Black Friday,” but my wife and I are at that age when it’s far more prudent to get rid of stuff than buy new things, this massive old house we live in filled with what is destined to become, soon enough, life’s own flotsam and jetsam.

Our age requires our downsizing. Right here before me sits a cream-colored Chinese cow, carved from marble, a homecoming present from a beloved colleague who often traveled to China. In just twenty years, who will care about it? Nobody. That cow will have to go–if not soon, eventually. I’m sounding morbid. Maybe. But I’m being real…Click here to read more.

A Casual Observer

A Casual Observer - Observations about the parenting, church, mental health, and the alien race we call teenagers

Chris writes about the phenomenon of running from one church to the next. He calls it perpetual spiritual adolescence.

Meet the Perpetual Spiritual Adolescent (PSA). She may be as biblically and philosophically educated as a professor of Christian theology, sated with knowledge. He may be the classic passive sports and finance guy. Both are stuck. You’d think that the Bible-minded person would have an inside track to the Godhead. But more Bible or theological knowledge doesn’t seem to translate into spiritual maturity. Then the “O Knowledgeable One,” church never meets her expectations. It’s never deep enough or right enough. Knowledge tends mostly to breed cynicism and self-righteousness, not spirituality. The apostle Paul said that knowledge puffs up. It does…..Click here to read more.

Slow Boat From Adramyttium

Slow Boat From Adramyttium After 15 years in the business world, Seth Jones has gone to seminary.

Seth Jones’ church has lost their minister. The reaction of the congregation reminds him of some things he experienced in his 15 years in the business world. Shouldn’t things be different in the church?

Two weeks ago, the senior pastor of my church asked me to preach on Christ the King Sunday (Nov 25th). I was thrilled that he asked and also surprised. One week ago, that pastor resigned immediately from the church. Now factions are forming and what was an opportunity to simply preach to a happy Thanksgiving crowd of families rejoined for the holidays has become an opportunity to be a prophetic voice in the midst of chaos. What a colossal mess…Click here to read more.

Spiritual Birdwatching

Spiritual Birdwatching Experiencing God is like birding … you can’t make it happen, much less catch him. You can only be watching expectantly and waiting for the gift of Presence.y.

The holidays can be a confusing time. On the one hand, Christianity is gearing up for the beginning of a new Church year. We are preparing our hearts for one of our major spiritual celebrations. On the other hand, our culture is calling us to purchase and consume at levels that became absurd some years ago, but are increasing nonetheless. Maria, of Spiritual Birdwatching, has some great suggestions for negotiating the confusion of the holiday season.
aaaaaaaaaaaGordon Atkinson

I spent a little time today thinking about it, seeing as Advent is upon us, and the holiday blitz is on in the stores. Much as I would like to boycott Christmas-as-we-know-it (bah, humbug to you too!), incremental change is probably more realistic. I’m also thinking that any change we implement has to be explained to four- and five-year-olds.

Here are some ideas I’ve come up with so far:…Click here to read more.

Suburban Christian

Suburban Christian Al Hsu writes about life, Christianity, suburbia, and living Christianly in the suburbs..

Life in the United States is rapidly changing. We all know that. We feel it every day. It is a challenge to understand how to live a Christian life in a world that changes so rapidly that one generation has a hard time understanding their parents’ perspective, let alone the perspective of their grandparents. Al Hsu has been reading a book called “Microtrends.” He brings some rather surprising statistics to our attention in his latest two blog entries.

- More Americans went bankrupt in 2005 than graduated from college. Bankruptcies have more than quintupled in the last two decades.

- Women are now the majority of college students, law school students, voters and car buyers.

- While people often assume that Latinos are Catholics, nearly a quarter of American Latinos identify themselves as Protestant. That’s about 10 million Protestant Latinos - more than the total number of Jews, Muslims, Episcopalians or Presbyterians….Click here to read more - Microtrends part one and part two. And his description of the book.

Emails to God

Emails to God

John Willome notices how Jesus treated two outcast, needy people and considers an outcast who is often a bother at his clinic.

We have some patients at our clinic who have been marginalized by society, and our temptation as a staff is to treat them as nuisances. There is one, in particular, of whom I am thinking. He comes often. He always has a peculiar request. He is sometimes abrasive…Click here to read more.

Counting Sheep

Counting Sheep - A shepherd’s view of life and work.

Carol Kelly is a shepherd, which is rare enough in this world. She tends a small flock of sheep. In this entry, we find out that one of her sheep is going to the slaughter. Writing from the point of view of her sheepdog, she ponders the complexities of animal life and death. It is hard to create a theology for animals. The scriptures don’t say very much. Perhaps a shepherd, who lives with and loves her flock, has as much right to speak on this topic as anyone.
aaaaaaaaaaaGordon Atkinson

Mom tried for a long time to sell Raven. Maybe someone would like a nice friendly black ewe? Maybe someone would actually like her long straight fleece even though Mom thought it was rather coarse? But for a long time, no one bought Raven.

Raven tried hard to become one of Mom’s pets. But Mom still loves Mercedes the best, and Amethyst almost as much. So when someone wanted to buy Raven for meat, Mom said OK. And Mom took Raven to a place where they make sheep into meat. Dad sheared Raven last night. So this morning, Raven stood alone and naked in a narrow pen with hogs on one side of her and cattle on the other side of her…Click here to read more.

Karenee’s Backlog

Karenee’s Backlog - An average woman reporting on God’s work in an average life.

In her post “What I Want, When I Want It,” Karanee notes that behind our need for immediate gratification is a lack of trust that God will provide what we need in God’s good time.

Yesterday in Sunday School we looked at Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. One of our classmates brought up a good point. Jesus WAS God. Why would it be a sin for God to use His power? Why couldn’t He just turn the stone to bread or jump and make the angels catch Him?…. We have the same question to answer in our lives, don’t we? Why isn’t it ok to use our freedom in Christ to do whatever we want? TV, work, movies, internet, how we spend our money, how we spend our time, people we talk to, the people we ignore–we may not be turning stones to bread, but we have gifts and needs…Click here to read more.

It Takes a Church

It Takes a Church - Musings about Christian Community, the mission of Christ and the life God intended for all of us. By Tod Bolsinger, pastor, author, and irregular blogger.

Many of us have only recently been made aware that our economic choices have good and bad consequences in the new global community. A shirt bought innocently at Wal-Mart may have been made by an abused child working in a dangerous factory somewhere in the world. Tod Bolsinger has found a pastor with a website that will help us make good decisions about how we spend our money. Take a look; it’s worth your time.
aaaaaaaaaaaGordon Atkinson

Jim Toole’s looks can be deceiving. Behind the calm (often described as “Jedi-like”) exterior lurks the heart of an entrepreneur who wants to change the world. Watch him hold a cup of coffee (usually made from beans he roasted himself after having them shipped from his favorite fair-trade co-op) and listen to the 41 year old pastor say, “I am often asked when I am going to write a book. I’m not. I’m going to come up with the next idea like ‘child sponsorship’, the next idea to change the way Christians can be part of changing the world.”…Click here to read more.

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