morality – is there such a thing as right and wrong? if so, how do we know which is which?
familar but…
… i was playing with my new toy – a 17-55 2.8. yay for pro-level zooms.
i also processed these with rawshooter, which may explain why they’re a little less uniform than usual. anyway… my lens is fun.
than the man who tries to subdue himself…
No one undergoes a stronger struggle than the man who tries to subdue himself. This should be our chief employment: strive to overcome ourselves and gain such a mastery that we daily grow stronger and better.
…
Because many people spend more time and effort in becoming educated than in living properly, it happens that many, therefore, go astray and bear little or no fruit.
…
If we were as diligent in uprooting vices and planting virtues as we are in debating abstruse questions, there would not be so many evils or scandals among us nor such laxity in monastic communities. Certainly, when Judgment Day comes we shall not be asked what books we have read, but what deeds we have done; we shall not be asked how well we have debated, but how devoutly we have lived.
Thomas a Kempis
for i will forgive their wickedness…
“…and remember their sins no more…”
It’s hard for me to believe God remembers my sin no more. Perhaps it’s because I remember my sin so well, or because other people remember my shortcomings and view me in light of them. Maybe it’s because I have such a hard time forgiving others – let alone forgetting what they’ve done and saying that it never happened.
And when i sit with someone and am prepared to share with them all my failures and weakness – I squirm a little when they say tell me those things don’t matter – I feel uncomfortable with the idea of forgiveness, of pardon, of justification.
I have so much to learn about how God works. I can’t understand Him. And in those moments when i see a new picture of God, I feel afraid – afraid because I see a new picture of how far I have to go.
“No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
saying ‘Know the Lord!’,
because they will all know me.”
May I know and practice the depths of your forgiveness, O God.
ambassador class – 4
my journey – part 35
Jesus spent a lot of time in boats.
Maybe that’s why I like them so much.
We journey across life, each in our own boat,
in an ocean of powerful forces we don’t understand.Good sailors use the wind and the waves,
they don’t create them.How often do I sit in my boat,
sails raised,
and blow with all my might,
hoping to move along.
at the national prayer breakfast, bono mentioned the advice he received from a wise man:
“Don’t ask God to bless what you’re doing,” he said, “rather jump on board with what God’s doing, because it’s already blessed.”
So often we look around us seeking God’s blessing in our lives for whatever little pet project we have right now, instead of looking around for what God is already doing, and becoming involved in that. So often I’m guilty of trying to make things work out on my own, instead of seeking God’s will and following His plan.
My hope is that each of us will look around us in our lives for the work of God around us, that we would all constantly jump on to what He is doing, and that in the process we would both be a blessing to others, and be blessed ourselves.
may you be transformed
May you be transformed,
your heart stretched and molded
by the Creator God as you focus on him.
May you empty yourself
set aside all life’s petty distractions
letting go of your common worries and cares.
And may you replace them with Christ
seeking to grow closer to Him
as you draw near to the cross.
more bush library macro
in need of relaxation, i headed out to the bush library again to take some pictures. it looks like within the next few weeks there will be some more flowers, so there may be multiple trips out there… at any rate, the rest of the pics can be found here.
pet peeve of the day.
Not to complain, but this has definitely come up as an issue the past two weeks in church services i’ve attended: language usage.
Now I understand that no one speaks with perfect grammar all the time. I am certainly guilty of bad english usage as much as the next guy, but if you’re going to depart from your normal pattern of speech while praying just so that you can sound smarter or more formal, I would appreciate if you do it correctly.
With that in mind, I thought we might have a refresher course on what certain archaic words mean, and their usage:
1. Thy or Thine – Thy and Thine are possessive pronouns in the genitive case. Correct usages: Thy word, Thy chair, Thy heart, thy grace. Incorrect usages: Thy art, Thy bring us, Thy formed the world. Thy should be used in place of the more common word “your” – and let’s not get started on the proper usage of “your” as compared to “you’re”. ex. sentence: Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
2. Thou and Thee– Thou and Thee are pronouns, thou being the nominative case and Thee being the objective, functioning as both the dative and accusative. For those of you who are counting, the nominative case marks the subject of a verb while the objective case functions as the target of the verb. Correct usage: “We beseech thee.” or “Thou art great among all Gods.” or “Thou hast provided …”
coldplay
coldplay was fun tonight, though generously only about 45% as good as u2. of course comparing u2 @ year 26 with coldplay @ year 7 isn’t exactly fair, but none the less it’s hard to compare with the show u2 puts on. my hope is that in 15 years or so coldplay will have evolved to the level of showmanship of u2 and mellowed out of some of their rolling stonesish antics.
that being said, there were several really cool moments. my personal favorites were “the scientist”, “till kingdom come” with a tribute to johnny cash with “ring of fire” tacked on the end of it, as well as “talk” and “yellow”. the encore (“swallowed in the sea”, “in my place”, and “fix you”) was quite compelling, and probably worth the price of admission alone. i don’t know that i’d payed proper attention to “swallowed in the sea” before. the lyrics from the final bridge seemed to me to be particularly appropriate for the evening: “oh, what good is it to live / with nothing left to give / forget, but not forgive / not loving all you see?”
at the conclusion, “fix you” was quite well done, with chris martin not singing the final refrain at all, but rather allowing the voices of the crowd echoing in the toyota center to rise above the strains of the piano.
“lights will guide you home,
and ignite your bones,
and i will try
to fix you.”
all in all an extremely enjoyable evening.