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Showing posts from February, 2010

Friday Five: Winter Olympics Edition

Friday Five suggestions come from here . Songbird writes: I t's been two weeks of snow, or not enough snow, of heartbreak before the action even began, of snowboards and skis and skates, of joy and sorrow. At our house, we've stayed up too late, and we don't even watch sports any other time! 1) Which of the Winter Olympic sports is your favorite to watch? Well, deep, dark confession time, I don't have television. I haven't since 2004, so I haven't actually seen any Olympics in real time since 2002, I think. Those were in Salt Lake according to Google. I haven't seen any of this year's Olympic Games, not even the opening ceremony. I thought they might be available on Hulu , but, alas, they were not. I have, in the past, enjoyed watching speed skating. And I would enjoy watching the biathlon. 2) Some of the uniforms have attracted attention this year, such as the US Snowboarders ' pseudo-flannel shirts and the Norwegian Curling team&

Ash Wednesday

Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51:1-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 Many of us grew up with Lenten seasons that were dark and gloomy. Lent was forty days of sadness, intensified guilt, forced sacrifice and a scraping sense of unworthiness. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpea . My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault. In the season before Easter, it was as if we had never heard of Christ, had no idea that a Messiah had come or, even more crucially, that he had been raised from the dead for the life of the world. The Lenten season isn’t supposed to be a time to grovel before God and beg for mercy. It is a time to take up the specific practices of giving, prayer, abstinence. We’re to give of the gifts God has given us. We’re driven to pray for ourselves, for those around us, for God’s whole world. We’re attempting to abstain from the things and behaviors that cause us to feel distant from God, be they physical, spiritual or emotional

Work It (Essential Passages #10)

Many moons and what feels like a lifetime ago, I started a series of reflections on what I consider to be the 50 most essential Bible passages. (You can read the first one here and look for others in the blog archive.) That seemed like it wouldn't be that difficult. In fact, when I began I thought I would fill out the 50 long before I ran out of passages, but that hasn't been the case. Each time I think of the project, I become overwhelmed with the passages I think are important, some I like and some I don't. Then I just don't write because I want my end result to be perfect . Nevertheless, I think this is an important project for me and I need to get back onto the horse and ride boldly into the terrain of commenting on my own canon . We all have books and passages we prefer to others. We owe it to ourselves to yield to the prodding of the Holy Spirit to examine those selections that we treasure, those we loathe and those we fear. Having said this, I'm going to

Cliff Dwellers (Epiphany 4)

Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; 1 Corinthians 13:1-13; Luke 4:21-30 There’s nothing better than a warm fuzzy- that nice feeling you get when something good happens or you see something cute or you hear of a heart-warming story. A warm fuzzy brightens your day, can make you a little more patient, might make you feel inclined to pass on the joy. What could be warmer and fuzzier than a young boy receiving a call from God, knowing the voice of God is speaking to him , knowing his purpose in life? What could be more heart-warming that a lengthy passage about love and its hallmarks of patience, endurance and truth? And what could be more inspiring than the tale of a local boy made good- returning to his hometown to share good news with them? What? You didn’t get all toe-tingly thrilled with the readings today? Why ever not? Could it be that being called to pluck up and pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant, to do it all