jeff's blog

may you come to Christ

may you taste the body of Christ
unfamiliar
but filling
sustaining
giving life.

May you taste the blood of Jesus
bitter
but cleansing
washing away iniquity.

May you leave this table
and follow Christ
wherever he leads
wherever he goes.

may you be reminded daily of the taste
of the body
and the blood
of Jesus Christ.

And may that body and blood
fill your life
that you may share life
with all you meet.

sorry for the recent lack of updates… with the insanity generated by the hurricane and working on projects, things got a little crazy. hopefully stuff will be more forthcoming in the next few days.

When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for three months at “the house of the dying” in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how best to spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, “And what can I do for you?” Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him.

“What do you want me to pray for?” she asked. He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the United States: “Pray that I have clarity.”

She said firmly, “No, I will not do that.” When he asked her why, she said, “Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of.” When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said, I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God.”

Craving clarity, we attempt to eliminate the risk of trusting God. Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys childlike trust in the Father’s active goodness and unrestricted love.

-unknown

there’s something more to worship than songs
than words
than actions.

it takes more than intent or presence
more than simple motion.

just as knowledge is not understanding
simple participation is not worship.

worship –
true worship –
needs more than mechanics.

it requires passion.

God
we come before you a prideful people,
a sinful people,
full of our own desires and wants,
distracted by a thousand things
as we enter into the most holy place
of worship with you.

we come
wanting to feel good about ourselves,
to stroke our own egos,
to put in as little as possible
while stealing as much from you
as we can.

Forgive us.

For our pride,
Forgive us.

For our reckless pursuit of self,
Forgive us.

for our ungrateful hearts,
forgive us.

For our failure to yield our lives to you,
forgive us.

Humble us, o God.

Create in us hearts of compassion
of reverence
of humility
of justice.

Open our eyes, Lord
to the people around us
remind us, God,
of Justice.

do not allow us to sit by
as people in our city go hungry
as people in our state are out of work
as people in our nation live without homes
as people in our world die in wars without name
as people everywhere do not know you.

do not let us sit by
do not let us be silent
while there exist thouse without voice.

force us, God,
to cry out in their defence.

Cleanse us, Jesus
cleanse our hearts,
our minds,
our souls.

As we enter into the very presence
of your Spirit
cleanse us and make us worthy.

in this time
make us yours.

many thanks to liz for the photo-op today. here are 6, with a link to 226 at the bottom:

additional pictures here. note: this is the same set of 36 pictures processed 6 different ways.

A candle,
solitary flame;
light, shining in a dark place.

Though alone,
may you shine brightly
with such light as you have been given,
drawing people to Christ;

a lamp – illuminating the path,
a beacon – warning of danger,
a fire – shelter and warmth.

May you find strength in dark places
knowing that light only shines in darkness
and darkness cannot overcome it.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it.

-John Donne

so there’s a contest with the theme of “the dark side”… since i’m a rather uncreative person, i have about one idea of what to do. while i don’t really want to enter a picture of myself, i thought it would be a good idea to get the lighting down before calling in the professionals to pose for me, so i ended up playing around for an hour and a half or so with various shots, trying to find out what worked.

here are some samples, comments appreciated…

gallery available here

Because while I do not know who the enemy is any longer, I do know who my friends are, and that I have not done as well by them as I should. I hope to change that. I hope to do better.

- from Bablyon 5

dance as though no one is watching you
love as though you have never been hurt before
sing as though no one can hear you
live as though heaven is on earth.

-souza

Yesterday a few of us headed down to Reliant Arena to help out with the relief efforts there. We were privilaged to be able to work in the makeshift pharmacy that has been set up, helping people get their perscriptions. I was struck not only by the thousands of evacuees, but also the thousands of volunteers who gave of their time, effort, money, and energy to help. As I sat back, I wondered what stories brought each of them to this place, and what each one of them would tell if they were able to speak.

There are hundreds of thousands of these stories that aren’t covered in the news. People who’ve lost everything. People who’ve dropped their lives to go down and help. People who took off an afternoon because they couldn’t stay at work any longer, and felt like something needed to be done. Big names and people who make a lot of noise get press coverage, but most of these people’s names will never be known.

Some people would have us believe that nobody helps people who don’t look like us or who aren’t in our social status, but in my experience yesterday I found that to be the exception rather than the rule.

There are more sacrifices being made than any of us will ever hear about in the news, whether it be doctors and nurses who fly in from across the country or drug stores that give away millions of dollars of medicine without knowing if they’ll ever get a cent from it, no questions asked.

written by my dear friend jeff keese…

during the course of an average day i spend several hours driving around the lovely metropolis that is bryan-college station. as you can imagine, this leaves much time for reflection, road rage and of course, dial-surfing the radio. usually i have to weather the storm of top-40 hits and country twang-songs (depending on who last drove my vehicle), but lately i have been addicted to a certain radio station from the small town known at houston, texas. the reason for my fascination with this station isn’t that they play the best music (by far) of any radio station on the dial but because they have been doing something simply amazing with their airtime. as most all of you know, the southern states of louisiana and mississippi have been devastated by the recent landfall of hurricane katrina. thousands of people have become refugees literally overnight and many of these refugees have found their way to houston and are being cared for by the american red cross in the astrodome. so this brings me to why this radio station is so wonderfully entertaining:

for the last forty hours (straight) the dj’s from this station’s morning show have been live on the air hosting what they are calling their “hurricane katrina request-athon.” here’s how it works: you call the station, you agree to donate a sum of money to their fund raiser, make a request and they’ll play it for you. (they’ll play anything, by the way…no really, anything. right now i’m listening to zydeco.) sounds simple, right? well, giving is when it comes down to it i suppose. so far, this simple fund raiser has gathered nearly a quarter of a million dollars in less than two days. (all this money goes to the american red cross disaster relief fund.)

i turned over to the local christian radio station hoping to find something similar happening , yet i was disappointed when the only mention of the disaster next door was a blurb in the news report. i was immediately frustrated! why could this rock station with their crude jokes and their songs with the offensive lyrics do so much more than we christians are!?! why were the unbelievers out-doing the believers!?! why do we talk so much about being Christ to those around us but when the time comes to actually be Christ we are left still just talking? why do i, knowing how much i have been given, still hesitate to give when i see a chance? what holds us back?

quick disclaimer: i know this seems entirely unfair to both the christian radio station mentioned and the christian community as a whole. i know that there are millions of christian families and people making sacrifices to help those people hurt in this disaster. i know that my saying that we are doing nothing is grossly inaccurate so let me just say this: i made the comparision earlier between the two radio stations to draw these conclusions: talk is indeed cheap and actions do speak much louder than words could ever do. i as a follower of Christ cannot afford to not serve those in need. if God has a mission and i do not step up then He will find some other way to accomplish His plans.

so last night my d70 began exhibiting what has been called the “blinking green light of death” syndrome. what it basically amounts to is that i’ll have to send my camera into nikon for repair.

sad.

so there may not be as many pictures, but hopefully i’ll get it repaired soon!

so we’ve got a blog over at the AFC site now. check out some good contributions from some up and coming authors and a podcast of oasis lessons.

http://aggiesforchrist.org/blog