the journey

A word about year-end giving

My idea of giving has changed in the past few years. 

The following considerations are representative of those changes.

At the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, think about giving more:

• Do not assume that end-of-year financial contributions are the same as giving to those in need.
• Therefore, find a need and meet it, find a hurt and heal it.  Repeat over and over. Make it a lifestyle and not merely an occasional good deed.
• Do it out of compassion and concern, and not obligation, guilt or ritual.
• Do it selflessly; no-strings-attached.  If its all about the recognition, feeling warm and fuzzy, paying back or being blessed in return, then... um... repent.  Try no-strings-attached for a change.
• And without question, don't do it out a misplaced sense of self-righteousness. 
• No, be a voice of encouragement and a friend to the marginalized when no one is looking.
• Skip the tax write-off if money is involved.  And, yes, give money to someone who desperately needs a hand.
• Make it about service, kindness, sacrifice and faithfulness. 
• It begins with inner transformation; and embodying the teachings/lifestyle of Jesus.

Here's what St. Paul says about it:

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you (Romans 2:1-2 Message).

And that's my idea of giving: allowing God to transform the world with His love, through you.

Happy New Year everyone.  God bless you.

Technorati Tags: New Years,Happy New Year

My favorite books of 2008

Now that several of my favorite blogs have posted their end-of-year list of book recommendations, I suppose it's time for me to get on the "favorite books of 2008" bandwagon.  ;-)

Ok, here goes...

I wish I had kept better records of my reading this year.  In previous years, there was a "just finished reading" Typelist on the blog that kept a chronological record of all my reading (with my notes/assessment of each one).

That is, until this year when I eliminated that Typelist altogether in an effort to streamline the blog.

Hmmmm. So much for that idea.

Oh well.  Here are here are a few good books listed in no particular order.

1. The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington (Hands down the best book that I read in 2008). The book's been around for awhile, but I just got around to it this year. 
2. A Christianity Worth Believing by Doug Paggit (Loved the Trucker Frank story, wow!)
3. The New Christians: Dispatched from the Emergent Fronteer by Tony Jones (A good account of the Emerging Church movement)
4. Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne (loved Shane's passion, but hated the cluttered, hard-to-read format)
5. Soul Graffiti by Mark Scandrette
6. Twilight by Stephanie Meyers (Completely captures the psyche of the adolescent female)
7. Rick & Bubba for President by Bill Burgess and Bill Bussey (light-hearted fun)
8. They Like Jesus But Not the Church by Dan Kimball (hits the nail on the head)
9. Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright (I was intrigued/surprised by the "life after life after death" discussion).
10. And two books that I've started but haven't finished:  Storm Front (Dresden Files, Book 1) by Jim Butcher and finally, last but not least, World Without End by Ken Follett.

Well, that's my 2008 reading in-a-nutshell.  If you have "good reads" you'd like to recommend, be sure to mention them in the comments section below.

Tags: favorite books, favorite books of 2008

A day in Burleson

Labyrinth
Originally uploaded by insanezamboni

[Click on photo for larger versions.]

Unless something changes (e.g., the weather), I plan on taking a sack lunch, Bible and a spiral notebook, and visiting this labyrinth tomorrow. It would be nice to spend some time reading, praying, reflecting and just being silent for awhile.

Hopefully, the weather forecast of the mid-50s is correct.

If you live in the DFW area, here's the precise location of the labyrinth:
Community of Christ
380 SW Johnson Ave.
Burleson TX 76028
[Click on name of church for Google Maps]

If you're wondering, "why visit a labyrinth?" Well, a relaxing day outside sounds refreshing.

Technorati Tags: labyrinth,Burleson,Texas

Job 37:1-5

Job 37:1-5
Originally uploaded by insanezamboni

[Click on graphic for larger versions.]

I stumbled upon this set of worship graphics today.

Though they're not the best, I'm particularly fond of this slide.

I don't sense they have a lot of web traffic (due to the low volume of posts on their discussion boards), but they're worth a click nonethelesss.

Browse and see for yourself.

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: worship,worship graphics,powerpoint

The Power of the Lord's Supper

An interesting thought:

“The power of the Lord’s supper is to create wholeness from brokenness; its power to create a new body can be experienced on a global scale. It can also be experienced on a very local level, the level of the circumstances of our lives.” (p. 158).

Source: Chalice Introduction to Disciples Theology
ht: ponderings on a faith journey

Technorati Tags: Communion, Lord's Supper

The Word became flesh

Before Sunset
Originally uploaded by photomagister

[Click on photo for larger versions.}

For quite some time the following text has been churning in the back of my mind, so it's become the basis of a sermon:

John 1:1-14 TNIV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us (emphasis mine). We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only [Son], who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Or as the Message paraphrase states it:

The Word became flesh and moved into the neighborhood!

Yes!

Technorati Tags: incarnation,Jesus Christ,Word became flesh

Contextless links (Christmas edition):: 12.24.08

Here are a few Christmas links to spice up your holiday:

• Disappointment: The true meaning of Christmas (kind of)
• The most famous Christmas Eve since the original
• Christmas linebacker (hilarious)
• A Christmas reflection (heartwarming)
• Sponsor a USO care package to support our men and women in uniform.
• YouTube: A Fat Albert Christmas Special (1977)
• CNN: So much for the classic Radio Flyer wagon...
• 50 kids flip-out upon receiving Wii for Christmas
• Have you purchased your Festivus pole yet?
• Hulu: House: Joy to the world
• YouTube: Johnny Cash Christmas Show
• Hey Santa, these watches are amazing (hint, hint)
• BBC: The road to Bethlehem (3 parts)
• Most unusual Christmas trees (l love the Charlie brown tree)
• President-Elect Obama's Christmas address
• Flickr: Great photo of Santa with a cup of coffee

Technorati Tags: Contextless links, Christmas, Advent

From "The Monk Downstairs"

Though I am only 2/3rds through, I am thoroughly enjoying The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington.

It's a story about a single mom and a former monk who find friendship, tenderness and romance with all of it's unvarnished messiness, misunderstandings, bad assumptions and personal baggage.

It's great prose.  It's real. It's readable. It's not contrived, shallow or soupy.

And here's a quote that's stuck with me all day:

"There's no one nastier than a contemplative with a grudge."

As a professional "religious type," this hit me square between the eyes.

Source: The Monk Downstairs, p. 122.

Technorati Tags: The Monk Downstairs, Tim Farrington

U2 | Christmas | Headphones Recommended

You gotta love some U2...

There's more here.

ht: jim hancock

Tags: U2, I believe in father Christmas

Trust is a grand theme

From Martin Marty at Christmastime:

For the next fortnight the University of Chicago and the Martin Marty Center close down; so, while I rarely visit either of them except electronically, I'll close down, to return in 2009. This end-of-year and holiday-greeting issue differs from the other fifty columns of the past year in that they all focus on a specific "sighting" of religion in public life, usually in print media and sometimes in electronic ones. We then cite chapter and verse, date of issue, and the like.

This week I could reference Saturday, December 20, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, our Chicago papers, and dates on the covers of newsmagazines, "public religion" expressions in religious outlets, and on. But this week I won't zero in on one. Instead I will editorialize on the basis of virtually all news and opinion media of the past months. The theme: trust. Typical is the Madoff scandal, in which one network of trusters, many of them relying on connections and handshakes, saw a criminal breakdown of trust. In our state of Illinois, wiretaps confirmed what millions already knew: that our governor corruptly broke trust with the public in myriad ways.

Meanwhile, the media tell of the breakdown of trust in the entire financial sector, and of the difficulty of recovering there unless and until some measures of trust are restored. An old administration in Washington fades away, one of its main legacies being stories of broken trust in the highest counsels. Scandals, sexual and fiscal, in religious organizations have led many in the public to stop trusting clergy, evangelists, and fund-raisers who use the name of God to misuse others, often horribly. A new administration takes shape, and the main issue is: who can be trusted, before and after appointment? I am almost embarrassed to speak in terms so familiar and broad that they can sound banal, like clichés. Yet the witness to broken trust is so vast and deep that to avoid it would be irresponsible. People in many disciplines need to speak up, and they are doing so.

Now I am going to venture with brief comments. I hope and trust that they are rare intrusions in Sightings about my own project. "Trust" is a centrally central, focally focal theme in Christian (as in Jewish, and other) theological discourse, and in the language of prayer and action. It shows up in titles of two small books I edited some years ago, mentioned here only to show that I am not a newcomer to the field, but still one who has much to learn. It happens that during the past year I did several commutes to SUNY Stony Brook, New York, and its "Trust Institute," to lecture and lead little seminars. Out of reading for it, I am finishing a book probably to be called Building Cultures of Trust. Talking about such projects in detail awaits another day and other media than this.

When I started writing the book, I thought I had to spend many pages discussing why "trust" and "broken trust" were relevant themes. During these months the public media have incessantly shrieked, in effect: "dealing with trust is not only relevant; it is desperately crucial!" Stony Brook, its Institute, and people like I can do little more than add a brick or stone or trowel full of intellectual mortar in the efforts to many who would work toward some restoration of trust. By the way, if ever there was front-page or prime-time moral and ethical discussion about a theme which has theological dimensions, this is it. Many economists, writers, and thinkers in general used to sound as if economics, political science, and the like, exhausted efforts to address the grand themes. But "Trust" is a grand theme, whose biblical and theological ties are coming to the fore. I trust.

ht: ponderings on a faith journey

Technorati Tags: Christmas, Martin Marty