Quote of the Day

Legalism doesn't make people "better"; it makes them worse. Moralism doesn't produce morality; it produces immorality. We make a terrible mistake when we believe that the answer to poor performance, be it moral, spiritual, or relational, is more Law. People get worse, not better, when you lay down the Law.

- Tullian Tchividjian: Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free

Quote of The Day

The required cheerfulness that characterizes many of our churches produces a suffocating environment of pat, religious answers to the painful, complex questions that riddle the lives of hurting people.

- Tullian Tchividjian: Glorious Ruin: How Suffering Sets You Free

The Unchanging Law of Judgment

by Oswald Chambers

With what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you —Matthew 7:2

This statement is not some haphazard theory, but it is an eternal law of God. Whatever judgment you give will be the very way you are judged. There is a difference between retaliation and retribution. Jesus said that the basis of life is retribution— “with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” If you have been shrewd in finding out the shortcomings of others, remember that will be exactly how you will be measured. The way you pay is the way life will pay you back. This eternal law works from God’s throne down to us (see Psalm 18:25-26).

Romans 2:1 applies it in even a more definite way by saying that the one who criticizes another is guilty of the very same thing. God looks not only at the act itself, but also at the possibility of committing it, which He sees by looking at our hearts. To begin with, we do not believe the statements of the Bible. For instance, do we really believe the statement that says we criticize in others the very things we are guilty of ourselves? The reason we see hypocrisy, deceit, and a lack of genuineness in others is that they are all in our own hearts. The greatest characteristic of a saint is humility, as evidenced by being able to say honestly and humbly, “Yes, all those, as well as other evils, would have been exhibited in me if it were not for the grace of God. Therefore, I have no right to judge.”

Jesus said, “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1). He went on to say, in effect, “If you do judge, you will be judged in exactly the same way.” Who of us would dare to stand before God and say, “My God, judge me as I have judged others”? We have judged others as sinners— if God should judge us in the same way, we would be condemned to hell. Yet God judges us on the basis of the miraculous atonement by the Cross of Christ.

Quote of the Day

A room without books is like a body without a soul. 

- Cicero

Quantum Leap: How John Polkinghorne Found God in Science and Religion

There are few books that you read and can remember clear as day 20 years later. Dr. Karl Giberson's Worlds Apart: The Unholy War Between Religion and Science is one of those books for me. So when I found out that Giberson was working with my personal friend and hero Dr. Dean Nelson on a book about world-renowned physicist-turned-Anglican-priest Sir John Polkinghorne, I marked the release date on my calendar. As anyone who has read Nelson or Giberson's work would expect, it is wonderful.

This is a great book for those, like me, who sometimes feel as if they are caught between the scientific ignorance of the faith community and the philosophical arrogance of the scientific community. Quantum Leap examines not only the spiritual and scientific thoughts and beliefs of Sir John Polkinghorne but the man himself as well.

In typical Nelson / Giberson fashion, the book takes head on the hard questions of the existence of God, the purpose of prayer, miracles and the afterlife while leaving plenty of room for detractors such as Stephen Weinberg, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, and E. O. Wilson.

It is a great read for anyone interested in approaching the issue of a scientifically informed spirituality and/or a spiritually informed view of science.

This book just might make you smarter. Highly recommended!

Quote of the Day

Most people do not see things as they are; rather, they see things as they are.

- Richard Rohr in Falling Upward

Problem

by George Bilgere

Jerry is at his usual table this morning
with his cup of coffee and his laptop,
working on his science fiction/fantasy novel.

In every café in America
men and women are hard at work
on their science fiction/fantasy novels.
Perhaps you are one of them. If so,
I salute you; it's a very competitive field.

Forty years, says Jerry, I sold life insurance.
Now I can do what I really want to do.

The planet where his story takes place
has three suns, and the problem he's working on
is how do the aliens there tell time.

I suggest having everyone wear three watches,
which Jerry doesn't think is funny.
This is a serious novel, he's taking it seriously,
and he's wants to get everything just right.

Forty years I sold life insurance, he says.
Now I can do what I really want to do.

Falling Upward

This book rocked my world. Or more precisely, my world has been rocked and this book made some sense of it all. I buy books on Kindle these days for economy and ease of use but a couple times a year I read a book that is so important I must have it on my shelf. I ordered the hard copy of this one before I was done with the Kindle version.

So what's it about and what makes it so great? The author explores what he calls the "second half of life" not second-half in terms of years but second-half in terms of maturity and (to use a term that makes me uncomfortable) enlightenment.

To sum it all up (an impossible task), the first half of life is all about labels and categories (Conservative, Liberal, Hippie, Punk, Slut, Prude, Jock, Nerd, Rich, Poor etc). The first half of life is all about image, posing and posturing. For those who reach the second half (and not all do), the labels fall away. There is no more labels because there is no more ego. There is only compassion, love and truth.

So how do we get to this second half of life? Unfortunately, it is usually through incredible suffering. We build this false persona all our lives and it takes a tremendous blow to knock it down.

The author is far more liberal than I and I will say that on my first read, I would guess 3% of what he said is questionable to me. The other 97% accurately describe my rocked world.

This book is not for everyone but if you have suffered to the point where you feel that your whole world was torn apart leaving you to ask, "I am not who I was. Who am I now?" And you are feeling like all the old labels you have relied upon are no longer helpful, this may be for you.

Disclaimer: It is a Christian book written by a catholic priest however he readily acknowledges that other faiths just flat-out do some things better and so I think the book works for non-Christians as well.

I can count on one hand the number of books in my life I have read, and then picked up and turned to page one to read again. This is one of them.

Now if you will excuse me, I have some reading to do . . .

Bookmobile

by Joyce Sutphen

I spend part of my childhood waiting
for the Sterns County Bookmobile.
When it comes to town, it makes a
U-turn in front of the grade school and
glides into its place under the elms.

It is a natural wonder of late
afternoon. I try to imagine Dante,
William Faulkner, and Emily Dickinson
traveling down a double lane highway
together, country-western on the radio.

Even when it arrives, I have to wait.
The librarian is busy, getting out
the inky pad and the lined cards.
I pace back and forth in the line,
hungry for the fresh bread of the page,

because I need something that will tell me
what I am; I want to catch a book,
clear as a one-way ticket, to Paris,
to London, to anywhere.

This Book Just Might Make You Smarter

My good friend, Dean Nelson, along with one of my science vs faith heroes, Karl Giberson has come out with a new book on John Polkinghorne. If you aren't familiar with the name, John Polkinghorne is considered one of the smartest minds in the world of physics alive today. He is also an Anglican Priest.

I know Dean personally, I know Karl through his previous work and I can't wait to get to know John Polkinghorne through this latest book. I don't even have to read it to recommend it.

For a taste, check out this USA Today article by Dean on Polkinghorne.

Buy the book. It just might make you smarter.

Recently Read

Creating a lifestyle of generosity is more than just behavioral modifications; it is seeing the world differently every day. When we are able to change our paradigm and see each moment and aspect of our life as an opportunity to be generous, we open ourselves up to experience the rich rewards that occur through sustained giving. Sacred giving can occur in the mundane grocery-store moments of everyday life, not just in those headline-grabbing, once-in-a-lifetime major financial gifts.

- Giving - The Sacred Art: Creating a Lifestyle of Generosity by Lauren Tyler Wright

The Hole in Our Gospel

Richard Stearns was CEO of Lennox Tableware, one of the premiere tableware companies in the world, when he decided to slash his income by 75% and move his family across the country to take over World Vision, USA,  a Christian international aid agency.

I recently read his book The Hole in Our Gospel in which he describes his decision-making process and how it changed his life.

The book is a good read and even though I have served the poor in various US cities and foreign countries, I came away with a new understanding of the complexity of the world's poor. I also came away with a new understanding of how little it would take to make an impact and reduce their suffering.

The book is aimed at the Christian church in America (and the Church takes some well deserved hits) however I think that anyone, regardless of their faith, with a heart for the poor and oppressed worldwide, will be informed and inspired by this book.

I highly recommend it and will (as usual) be posting snippets in upcoming days to give you a better feel for the book.

Recently Read

Americans are impatient with riddles and so they give poetry a wide berth, knowing from Miss Fernwood’s 8 th grade English class that a page of writing with an uneven right margin means a series of jokes with no punch lines, a puzzle with no right answers. And Americans have an irreverent streak: we sit in church hoping someone will fart. Poetry is a hushed chapel in which the poet sighs and the congregation must sigh along with her. And in this chapel, nobody ever farts. The gases are absorbed in the heart and emitted verbally.
- Good Poems, American Places

Quote of the Day

To base one’s faith on beautiful scenery is to leave oneself open to grave doubt if you should visit Oklahoma.

- Garrison Keillor in Good Poems, American Places

Recently Read

[A = a theoretical God-become Man]

We need not expect that A, like some religious reformers of history, will go about denouncing men as “miserable sinners.” Indeed there would be no need of that. Insincerity always feels uncomfortable in the presence of sincerity, unreality in the presence of reality and selfishness in the presence of Love. We may expect then that in the presence of a morally complete man, a good deal of spiritual discomfort will be spontaneously aroused, sometimes dully and sometimes acutely. Some men would be stimulated to an intense hunger for wholeness, but some would be angered and resentful and determined either to get out of range of the cause of their discomfort or to get rid of it.

- Your God Is Too Small: A Guide for Believers and Skeptics Alike

Recently Read

Back in Lux’s pool, I honestly couldn’t think of anything to be grateful for. I told Lux something like I was glad I still had all my limbs. That’s what I mean about how my mind didn’t take in reality before I began to practice some regular devotions. I couldn’t register the privilege of holding my blond and ringleted boy, who chortled and bubbled and splashed on my lap. . .


Say thanks for the sky, Lux said, say it to the floorboards. This isn’t hard, Mare. At some point, I also said to him, What kind of god would permit the Holocaust? To which Lux said, You’re not in the Holocaust. In other words, what is the Holocaust my business? . . .


I started following his advice by mouthing rote thank-you’s to the air, and right off, I discovered something. There was an entire aspect to my life that I had been blind to—the small, good things that came in abundance. A friend had once told me regarding his own faith, “I’ve memorized the bad news.” So it seemed to me that my über-realistic worldview (we die, worms eat us, there is no God), to which I’d clung so desperately for its rationality, was never chosen for its basis in truth, nor for its efficacy in running my life. It was just a focal point around which my own tortured inwardness could twist.

- Mary Karr in Sinners Welcome: Poems

Recently Read

There is always a danger of imagining a God with moral qualities like our own, vastly magnified and purified of course, and WITH THE SAME BLIND SPOTS. Thus the god whom we imagine may have his face set against drunkenness (an evil which, though it does not tempt us, fills us with horror and indignation), may turn a blind eye to our business methods because he feels, as we do, that “business is business”! Obviously, unless the conception of God is something higher than a Magnification of our own Good Qualities, our service and worship will be no more and no less than the service and worship of ourselves.
- Your God Is Too Small: A Guide for Believers and Skeptics Alike

Recently Read

God will inevitably appear to disappoint the man who is attempting to use Him as a convenience, a prop, or a comfort, for his own plans. . .

The people who feel that God is a Disappointment have not understood the terms on which we inhabit this planet. They are wanting a world in which good is rewarded and evil is punished—as in a well run kindergarten. They want to see the good man prosper invariably, and the evil man suffer invariably, here and now. There is, of course, nothing wrong with their sense of justice. But they misunderstand the conditions of this present temporary life in which God withholds His Hand, in order, so to speak, to allow room for His plan of free will to work itself out. Justice will be fully vindicated when the curtain falls on the present stage, the house lights go on, and we go out into the Real World.

- Your God Is Too Small: A Guide for Believers and Skeptics Alike

Recently Read

Whatever a man’s reaction may be to the idea of the terrific “size” of God, the point to note is that his comment is this: “I CANNOT IMAGINE such a tremendous God being interested in me,” and so on. He “cannot imagine”: which means simply that his mind is incapable of retaining the ideas of terrifying vastness and of minute attention to microscopic detail at the same time. But it in no way proves that God is incapable of fulfilling both ideas (and a great many more). . .

Man may be made in the image of God; but it is not sufficient to conceive God as nothing more than an infinitely magnified man.

- Your God Is Too Small: A Guide for Believers and Skeptics Alike

Recently Read

Oswald Chambers once asserted that “the Christian has no right to lurk in the bosom of Jesus because his thinking gives him a headache”—which sums up this aspect of the matter very neatly. . .

The man who is outside all organized Christianity may have, and often does have, a certain reverence for God, and a certain genuine respect for Jesus Christ (though he has probably rarely considered Him and His claims with his adult mind). But what sticks in his throat about the Christianity of the Churches is not merely their differences in denomination, but the spirit of “churchiness” which seems to pervade them all. They seem to him to have captured and tamed and trained to their own liking Something that is really far too big ever to be forced into little man-made boxes with neat labels upon them. He may never think of putting it into words, but this is what he thinks and feels. “If,” the Churches appear to be saying to him, “you will jump through our particular hoop or sign on our particular dotted line, then we will introduce you to God. But if not, then there’s no God for you.” This seems to him to be nonsense, and nasty arrogant nonsense at that. “If there’s a God at all,” he feels rather angrily, “then He’s here in the home and in the street, here in the pub and in the workshop. And if it’s true that He’s interested in me and wants me to love and serve Him, then He’s available for me and every other Tom, Dick, or Harry, who wants Him, without any interference from the professionals. If God is God, He’s BIG, and generous and magnificent, and I can’t see that anybody can say they’ve made a ‘corner’ in God, or shut Him up in their particular box.” . . .

if the Churches give the outsider the impression that God works almost exclusively through the machinery they have erected and, what is worse, damns all other machinery which does not bear their label, then they cannot be surprised if he finds their version of God cramped and inadequate and refuses to “join their union.”
Your God Is Too Small: A Guide for Believers and Skeptics Alike