the edge of the cliff

A friend sent this to me today. Awesome timing.

I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.
Revelation 3:8

When God leads you to the edge of the cliff, trust Him fully and let go, only 1 of 2 things will happen, either He'll catch you when you fall, or He'll teach you how to fly! 'The power of one sentence! God is going to shift things around for you today and let things work in your favor. If you believe, send it. If you don't believe, delete it. God closes doors no man can open & God opens doors no man can close. If you need God to open some doors for you...send this to ten people. Have a blessed day and remember to be a blessing...

A "higher" judge?

Oh how easy this is to say, but how difficult it is to actually do.

"I think that if God forgives us we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him."

C.S. Lewis in a letter to a Miss Breckenridge 19 April 1951

Do It Again!

"All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself, it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. People feel that if the universe was personal, it would vary; if the sun were alive, it would dance...
...The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. Now to put the matter in a popular phrase, it might be true that the sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children. when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite for infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we."

G.K. Chesterton in "Orthodoxy", Chapter IV, "The Ethics of Elfland"

Cats and Dogs

From Dogs and Kitties

"We were talking about cats and dogs the other day and decided that both have consciences but the dog, being an honest, humble person, always has a bad one, but the cat is a Pharisee and always has a good one. When he sits and stares you out of countenance he is thanking God that he is not as these dogs, or these humans, or even as these other cats!"

C.S. Lewis on Luke 18:9-14,
in a letter to Mary Willis Shelburne
12 March 1955

The Shack

http://theshackbook.com/

"Mack, if anything matters then everything matters. Because you are important, everything you do is important. Every time you forgive, the universe changes; every time you reach out and touch a heart or a life, the world changes; with every kindness and service, seen or unseen, my purposes are accomplished and nothing will ever be the same again." -- Sarayu

If you have not read this book, get a copy and read it! It is an exceptional parable on the Person and Nature of God and His relationship with us. I am in awe at the reverence and love the author put into writing this wonderful story. I am inspired and challenged by this story. Please read it, and spread the word to everyone you know. This story will change lives.

• Interview with William P. Young
• William P. Young's blog
• Paul Young’s Short Bio

Ekklesia

check out this excellent sermon:

Title: Ekklesia
Preaching/Speaking: Rev. Adam Hamilton
Date Presented: Oct 19, 2008
Sermon Series: Illuminate
http://www.cor.org/worship-sermons/sermons/show/sermons/Why-Are-We-Here/

the Month before Christmas?

You know, after watching the Advent Conspiracy video, reading this little poem included below (which was forwarded to me by e-mail) makes me think that the solution for putting "Christ back into Christmas" is NOT undoing all the politically correct holiday phrases as the poem suggests. Joining together with other Christians to wish "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" does not put Christ back in Christmas. Instead, as the Advent Conspiracy video points out, we should be putting Christ back into OUR LIVES! Surrendering our lives to Christ and loving and serving others will make Christmas (God wrapped up in human flesh) real again. It takes more than clever bumper stickers, Jesus bling from the Christian bookstore, or singing Christmas carols, to put Christ back in Christmas. "Christians" are the "Christ" who are missing from Christmas. We are to be His body, but instead of giving the love and grace of Christ to others, we are debating what we should call this season and how to spread the word. Talk and words are pretty cheap. The Word of God taking on human flesh is not. The unbelieving world aren't the ones leaving Christ out of Christmas, they don't even know Him. "Christians" are the ones who have dropped the ball on this one. We are the ones who are missing. We are to be the Christ in Christmas!

Subject: Twas the Month before Christmas...

Twas the month before Christmas
When all through our land,
Not a Christian was praying
Nor taking a stand.
See the PC Police had taken away,
The reason for Christmas - no one could say.
The children were told by their schools not to sing,
About Shepherds and Wise Men and Angels and things.
It might hurt people's feelings, the teachers would say
December 25th is just a 'Holiday'
Yet the shoppers were ready with cash, checks and credit
pushing folks down to the floor just to get it!
CDs from Madonna, an X BOX, an I-pod
Something was changing, something quite odd!
Retailers promoted Ramadan and Kwanzaa
In hopes to sell books by Franken & Fonda.
As Targets were hanging their trees upside down
At Lowe's the word Christmas - was no where to be found.
At K-Mart and Staples and Penny's and Sears
You won't hear the word Christmas; it won't touch your ears.
Inclusive, sensitive, Di-ver-si-ty
Are words that were used to intimidate me.
Now Daschle, Now Darden, Now Sharpton, Wolf Blitzen
On Boxer, on Rather, on Kerry, on Clinton!
At the top of the Senate, there arose such a clatter
To eliminate Jesus, in all public matter.
And we spoke not a word, as they took away our faith
Forbidden to speak of salvation and grace
The true Gift of Christmas was exchanged and discarded
The reason for the season, stopped before it started.
So as you celebrate 'Winter Break' under your 'Dream Tree'
Sipping your Starbucks, listen to me.
Choose your words carefully, choose what you say
Shout MERRY CHRISTMAS ,not Happy Holiday!
All Christians join together and wish everyone you meet

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Christ is The Reason for the Christ-mas Season!

If you agree forward, if not, simply delete.

ps. I'm going to comment on what I wrote above. I apologize if I was overly critical of folk's efforts to put Christ back in Christmas. I think they are well meaning and that the efforts will be blessed if done in the right spirit. But I don't believe that is the full solution. I believe that the solution to putting Christ back in Christmas is for us to incarnate Christ in our lives, especially at this time of year when we celebrate His Incarnation among us. Immanuel. God is with us.

On Suffering

We are told that even those tribulations which fall upon us by necessity, if embraced for Christ's sake, become as meritorious as voluntary sufferings, and every missed meal can be converted into a fast if taken in the right way.
- letter to Mary Willis Shelburne Aug 10, 1953

.. you know already the things we have been taught - that suffering can (but oh!, with what difficulty) be offered to God as our part in the whole redemptive suffering: that suffering itself does not fester of poison, but resentment does: that sufferings which (heaven knows) fell on us without and against our will can be so taken that they are as saving and purifying as the voluntary sufferings of martyrs and ascetics.
- letter to Mrs. D. Jessup Jan 5, 1954

taken from "Yours, Jack - Spiritual Direction from C.S. Lewis" Paul F. Ford ed.

I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.
- Colossians 1:24 - NRSV

Advent Conspiracy

http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqqj1v-ZBU

On the Word

It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him. When it becomes really necessary (i.e. for our spiritual life, not for controversy or curiosity) to know whether a particular passage is rightly translated or is Myth (but of course Myth specially chosen by God from among countless Myths to carry a spiritual truth) or history, we shall no doubt be guided to the right answer. But we must not use the Bible (our fathers too often did) as a sort of Encyclopedia out of which texts (isolated from their context and not read without attention to the whole nature and purport of the books in which they occur) can be taken for use as weapons.

-- from a letter written by CS Lewis to "Mrs. Johnson" on 8 Nov 1952.

On Life's Interruptions

"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’, or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life - the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom of one’s own imagination. This at least is what I see at moments of insight: but it’s hard to remember it all the time - ”

-- C.S. Lewis, in a letter to his lifelong friend Arthur Greeves, Dec 20, 1943

On Disinterested Choice

"My conversion involved as yet no belief in a future life. I now number it among my greatest mercies that I was permitted for several months, perhaps for a year, to know God and to attempt obedience without even raising that question. My training was like that of the Jews, to whom He revealed Himself centuries before there was a whisper of anything better (or worse) beyond the grave than shadowy and featureless Sheol. And I did not dream even of that. There are men, far better men than I, who have made immortality almost the central doctrine of their religion; but for my own part, I have never seen how a preoccupation with that subject at the outset could fail to corrupt the whole thing. I had been brought up to believe that goodness was goodness only if it were disinterested, and that any hope of reward or fear of punishment contaminated the will." ... “God was to be obeyed simply because he was God.”

-- C.S. Lewis, in “Surpised by Joy”, chapter 15

On Spiritual Efforts

"We read of spiritual efforts, and our imagination makes us believe that, because we enjoy the idea of doing them, we have done them. I am appalled to see how much of the change which I thought I had undergone lately was only imaginary. The real work seems still to be done. It is so fatally easy to confuse an aesthetic appearance of the spiritual life with the life itself - to dream you have waked, washed, and dressed, and then to find yourself still in bed..."

-- C.S. Lewis, in a letter to lifelong friend Arthur Greeves June 15, 1930

On Gender Hierarchy

"More theologically, if we return to the Genesis text, we are astonished at the usual misunderstandings: Eve is inferior, it is said, because she is created after Adam. This superb logic makes Adam inferior to the great Saurians after which he was created. Creation is in fact an ascending act, and Eve, who is created last, comes at the climax as its crown and completion. Again, it is said that Eve is inferior because she is not made out of primal clay but out of a part of Adam. This is equally absurd reasoning, for Adam, who carries the name Earth, is made out of inanimate matter, but Eve, who carries the name Life, is made out of animate and hence superior matter."

-- Jacques Ellul, in “The Subversion of Christianity”, ch 4

Little Christs

p. 190
Men are mirrors, or 'carriers' of Christ to other men. Sometimes unconscious carriers. This 'good infection' can be carried by those who have not got it themselves. People who were not Christians themselves helped me to Christianity. But usually it is those who know Him that bring Him to others. That is why the Church, the whole body of Christians showing Him to one another, is so important. You might say that when two Christians are following Christ together there is not twice as much Christianity as when they are apart, but sixteen times as much.

p. 191-192
And now we begin to see what it is that the New Testament is always talking about. It talks about Christians `being born again'; it talks about them 'putting on Christ'; about Christ 'being formed in us'; about our coming to 'have the mind of Christ'.

Put right out of your head the idea that these are only fancy ways of saying that Christians are to read what Christ said and try to carry it out - as a man may read what Plato or Marx said and try to carry it out. They mean something much more than that. They mean that a real Person, Christ, here and now, in that very room where you are saying your prayers, is doing things to you. It is not a question of a good man who died two thousand years ago. It is a living Man, still as much a man as you, and still as much God as He was when He created the world, really coming and interfering with your very self; killing the old natural self in you and replacing it with the kind of self He has. At first, only for moments. Then for longer periods. Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity...

p. 199
... This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects - education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects - military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden - that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose. It says in the Bible that the whole universe was made for Christ and that everything is to be gathered together in Him. I do not suppose any of us can understand how this will happen as regards the whole universe. We do not know what (if anything) lives in the parts of it that are millions of miles away from this Earth. Even on this Earth we do not know how it applies to things other than men. After all, that is what you would expect. We have been shown the plan only in so far as it concerns ourselves.

p. 200
What we have been told is how we men can be drawn into Christ - can become part of that wonderful present which the young Prince of the universe wants to offer to His Father - that present which is Himself and therefore us in Him. It is the only thing we were made for. And there are strange, exciting hints in the Bible that when we are drawn in, a great many other things in Nature will begun to come right. The bad dream will be over: it will be morning.


-- Excerpts from Book Four, Chapters 7 and 8 of C.S. Lewis' "Mere Christianity"

Haiti's first contact with Europeans

Haiti's first contact with Europeans

I found it very interesting and distressing to read about the first contact between Europeans and the natives (Arawaks) of the island on which Haiti is located. Last night, I was reading  part of Martha's AP US History assignment, from a book which tells the truth about US history that OUR generation was never allowed to study.

The island was referred to as Hispaniola when Columbus first arrived there. Out of the timbers of the Santa Maria, which had run aground, he built a fort, the first European military presence in the "new" world. His report to the Court in Madrid included:

"Hispaniola is a miracle. Mountains and hills, plains and pastures, are both fertile and beautiful... the harbours are unbelievably good and there are many wide rivers of which the majority contains gold .... There are many spices, and great mines of gold and other metals..."

Columbus report of the natives:

"[the natives] are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone..."

He promised the Court in Madrid that he would bring them back "as much gold as they need... and as many slaves as they ask." He promised this in the name of "God": "Thus the eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent impossibilities."

His 2nd expedition returned with 17 ships with the clear goal to bring back slaves and gold. His expedition in Haiti found almost no gold. In 1495, he collected 1500 Arawaks and put them in pens. They picked the 500 "best" slaves and put them on ships for Spain. 200 died enroute. The rest were sold as slaves. Columbus later wrote "Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity go on sending all the slaves that can be sold."

In time however, most of the slaves died in captivity. So instead, Columbus enslaved them on the Island of Haiti and forced them to collect gold for him. He found, however, that the "fields of gold" did not exist. Each slave was given 3 months to collect a certain quantity of gold. If they failed, as most did, since the gold was not as plentiful as they imagined, their hands were cut off and they were allowed to bleed to death.

There are more horrific facts, too many for me to type here. My point is this... as I was reading the FHM newsletter, the day after reading these horrible things that OUR ancestors committed, I thought about how the Grace of God is allowing US to pay back just a small amount of the incredible injustice and evil our ancenstors did to the ancestors of our Haitian brothers and sisters. Thank God for his Grace, and for the proviledge to do his work and help undo the evil of the past and of this world.

that's my 2 cents, altho probably closer to a dollar :-)