Morning Gardening and Simple Prayers
July 30, 2008
Gardening and landscaping are full of spiritual lessons. The plants at our church never stop teaching me things about God. The tenacity of the plants around our church in retaking the land that we so rudely claimed as our own reminds me that the earth is old, and its purposes are deeper and older than our own. God’s creation will still be working and growing long after we are gone.
Thomas Turner of Everyday Liturgy has written a piece about the spiritual lessons he learned while pulling red onions from his garden.
As I watered the plants this morning I noticed our onions had “jumped” out of the ground again. My wife and I pile dirt on top, but they keep pushing their bulbs above the surface of the soil. I suppose they were trying to tell us they just didn’t feel like being in the ground any longer, so skipped my regular morning prayers and began filling a colander with little dirt clod covered red onions.
Well I didn’t really skip my morning prayers, just the one in the Glenstal Prayer Book. I focused my soul on how gardening is a metaphor for how God deals with us. I prayed that though I am sometimes as inpatient as an onion who pushes itself out of the soil to kiss the air and sun, that God would use me in the best way possible.…Read More
It’s all about the size of your steeple
July 30, 2008
There are many challenges to doing church in the 21st century. One of the hardest is learning to recognize the influence of our culture. We do things in American churches in certain ways, which is fine as long as we don’t start thinking that our culture is the gospel. For example, most churches feel that a church building is essential. Having a church without a building is unthinkable. And yet, none of the earliest Christian churches had buildings. One wonders what we have lost by tying ourselves to expensive structures.
High Calling Blogger “A Casual Observer” points out this weakness in a very interesting piece called, “It’s all relative to the size of your steeple.”
Most contemporary Christians mistakenly view the church building as a necessary part of worship. Therefore, they never question the need to financially support a building and its maintenance.
The church edifice demands a vast infusion of money. In the United States alone, real estate owned by institutional churches today is worth over $230 billion. Church building debt, service, and maintenance consumes about 18 percent of the $50 to $60 billion tithed to churches annually. Point: Contemporary Christians are spending astronomical amounts of money on their buildings.
All the traditional reasons put forth for “needing” a church building collapse under careful scrutiny. We so easily forget that the early Christians turned the world upside down without them (see Acts 17:6). They grew rapidly for three hundred years without the help (or hindrance) of church buildings.…Read More.
The Mystery of Beauty
July 28, 2008
High Calling blogger J. Schaap writes about his love of digital photography, how it has changed him and how it has opened his eyes to the beauty of the world———————–
Digital photography has made a ton of people into amateur photographers and, I’m told, changed the nature of professional photography just as well. Count me among those who love to shoot. I always have.
Anyway, I’m often dumbfounded by what exactly it is that makes me say of a particular landscape, “Now that’s beautiful.” I assume that, were I trained as an artist, I’d know at least something of the answer to such a question, but I’m not and therefore I don’t. I do know what I like, however–I can see it in a moment. What baffles me, for the most part, is why.
A couple days ago, I took a walk out into the New Mexico desert. The sky was full of drama, and the earth itself was famously red. Here and there, wild flowers festooned the place, but for the most part, what I saw was the desert’s ordinary livery this time of year, I’m sure…Read More
He Carries My Disease
July 26, 2008
High Calling Blogger “Wide Eyed Fiction” writes about healing. Healing is hard to understand, in part because we usually only think of physical healing. And of course, we’ve all watched the TV preachers heal people and been a little embarassed by it. But Jesus wasn’t timid when it came to healing. Check out what Mike Delossa has to say about it. He struggles with insomnia, which is a terrible affliction. Those who have spent hours and hours alone in the dark know this. Mike takes comfort in knowing that Jesus knows what he is going through.
I can’t sleep again. I’m tired, so tired that after a few minutes of reading in bed I can barely keep my eyes open and the words on the page blur like I was cross-eyed. But as soon as I close my eyes to sleep I get very restless and feel a sudden urge to scream or holler. I know it sounds crazy and many of you are probably shaking your head and thinking, “Oh, no, he’s finally lost it, gone over the edge, signed into the local funny farm.” It’s not like that, though. It’s not an actual urge to scream, it just feels that way. Hard to explain. Has anyone else experienced this?
Anyway, eventually, in the wee hours of the morning I do fall asleep. Maybe it’s my nerves, anxiety, stress, I don’t know. It’s weird because last week I couldn’t get enough sleep and now I can’t buy an easy entrance into La-La Land….Read More
He was only a shepherd boy
July 23, 2008
As a young man, he spent his days tending sheep. Admittedly, it wasn’t the most fashionable of occupations; to the rest of his society, shepherds were pretty much the lowest of the low.
Though maybe still a little vague about the ramifications, his real ambition was to serve in the army like his brothers, and maybe one day he would. But still, somebody had to watch the sheep; after all, it was an important responsibility. And so, being the youngest of seven sons, he’s the one who ended up with the job.
As careers go, sheep tending could hardly be equated with leadership training. Maybe one could make a case for resource management, but still. Of course, the job was not without its dangers. Poachers, bears, wolves, and the occasional lion - still, he knew how to take care of himself, and he was pretty good with a slingshot. In fact, he had the dressed skins of several bears and lions to prove it…. Read More.
Spiritual Decompression
July 21, 2008
The modern world taxes us. Literally of course, but also emotionally and spiritually. We are far too busy, far to distracted, juggling too many tasks, keeping up with schedules that are too full. You can step out of the modern world for a time, taking a vacation. But it often takes a few days to settle into a slower pace of living.
Real Live Preacher noticed this on a recent vacation. He wrote about it in a piece called “Spiritual Decompression.”
It’s a little unnerving when you first arrive. When darkness falls and there is no television or news, you might find yourself fidgeting a bit. But Jeanene and I have learned to wait patiently until our bodies adjust to the simple sounds and the simpler pace of life. Once you emotionally let go of the modern world and the fast pace of life we’ve created for ourselves there, your body settles quite nicely into what I would say is a more natural state. Before you know it you’ll find yourself happily staring off into the distance, listening to the echoing booms of a thunderstorm, or watching a hummingbird float gently in front of a flower. You might look up to find that you’ve spent an hour trying to feed a cracker to a chipmunk.
Our daughters have not been to Creede as often as we have, and they are not used to the awkward decompression time. The first night we were here, our middle daughter finally grasped the reality of our situation. No television and no internet, which means no MySpace. She panicked.
“Dad, what are we going to do? There’s nothing to watch on TV, and I can’t get to MySpace. What are we supposed to do?”
“Well, that’s why we come here. You have to settle into a simpler kind of living.”
“Yeah, but what are we supposed to DO?”… Read More
An Interview with the President of Disney Parks: Al Weiss
July 18, 2008
Our own HighCallingBlogs’ Marcus Goodyear had an opportunity to dialog with the head of Disney Parks, Al Weiss who not only oversees the four Disney theme parks world wide but also heads up Disney Cruise Lines and the Disney Vacation Club.
Al Weiss shared about how his faith affects his work with one of the premier entertainment companies in the world.
Read the entire Al Weiss interveiw .
Cal Rogers
July 18, 2008
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
July 18, 2008
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.
Learn to Love Annoying Coworkers
July 18, 2008
In this second installment, Marlo Schalesky shares with us how to get beyond our coworkers’ faults. Drawing from Peter’s example in the Bible, Marlo shows how we can learn to love those folks at work—even the ones that we find really annoying.
Be sure to read the whole thing .
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