“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis
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Life goes on…
Back in the ’90’s and aughts I worked on a lot of websites, including my own. My tagline still remains, “This is my signature.” It was fun during the halcyon days of web development when everything was still just HTML (well, maybe some FLASH, CSS, xml – you know, cutting edge stuff!). My old website is still up, I still pay for the hosting service, but I haven’t updated it in probably 12-years or so. I have great intentions of still playing in the web-world… but nothing is the same as it was back then and that world has passed me by. WordPress works just fine.
It’s interesting going back and clicking on all the old links to websites that impressed and inspired me by creatives, designers, early blogging pioneers, etc.(I even got a free Blogger hoodie from Google when it bought the company), and issue oriented websites that seemed to say something significant other than the status quo blah, blah, blah. Most all of the sites are now gone. I suppose for most of those people, their lives moved on… like me and my own 12-year out-of-date simple HTML-CSS website. At least my URL still works.
Do I take the time to go back and update everything… make it right, relevant, or just let it go as a window into an earlier time in my life?
I can’t help thinking about relationships that I’ve let go of in similar ways. I just stopped “updating” them. Like my website, I think about most all of them from time-to-time and even visit with old friends and extended family on occasion… the URL’s still work… but what about those relationships? Fond memories, now, or…
We are to be…
When there is an attack on a synagogue, it is an attack on my church. When there is an attack on a Muslim, it is an attack on me.
The Command I follow calls me, demands that I, consider others before myself, treat others as I want to be treated, no matter how the other may view or treat me. If someone wants to think him/herself a “Christian,” this is how s/he is to be (even if imperfectly) not because I say so, but because the One we follow demands it. How different the world would be if only we abide this call.
We are to be…
When there is an attack on a synagogue, it is an attack on my church. When there is an attack on a Muslim, it is an attack on me.
The Command I follow calls me, demands that I, consider others before myself, treat others as I want to be treated, no matter how the other may view or treat me. If someone wants to think him/herself a “Christian,” this is how s/he is to be (even if imperfectly) not because I say so, but because the One we follow demands it. How different the world would be if only we abide this call.
Steampunk Priest and the Helpers
I’ve been thinking about Halloween and comments some make about how easy it could be for me to just dress up as a priest. Well, it could, but that seems too irreverent, so I never will. However, I was thinking about how dressing up as a Steampunk Priest might be fun. So, I googled it, like any good, red-blooded, American male, to see what others have done, if anything. There is a bit of stuff and some good ideas. However…
I came across a blog: Steampunk Vicar. His latest post had a quote from Rev. Rogers (that’s “Mr. Rogers” to you and me, of Neighborhood fame, who was, in fact, an ordained Presbyterian minister). This little quote may be one of those things that just shifts my whole perspective (kind of like what Steampunk does). Here it is:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'” (Fred Rogers)
Mr./Rev. Rogers’ mother was a profoundly wise woman, and I am sure much of Mr. Rogers’ sensibility came from her.
Look for those who are helping! Instead of absorbing the blathering of crazed pundits or protesting ditties, look for those who are helping. It is easy to talk and can be fun to march, but to roll up one’s sleeves and be in the midst of those who smack-you-upside-the-head need help – on the ground, in the field, beside the one prone in the gutter – will be a much better and in the end more satisfying-for-the-soul thing to do. In the midst of the worst of everything, look for the helpers! I want to be with the helpers.
Netflix OA
I just finished watching the first season of Netflix’s series OA. Great story telling. The best aspect of the story is the group of “misfits” – young and old – that provide the main medium of the story telling. Of course, it brought up all the old high school “misfit” / “geek” feelings that have gone on within me all my life.
It’s true that for whatever reason I’ve always been slightly off kilter from most other people. Every now and then, I find another kindred spirit, but rarely.
Watch it, if you can.
Down a different road…
‘But how can it be I am guilty before anyone?’ each of them would say, laughing in my face [even good naturedly]. ‘Well, how can I be guilty before you, for example?’ ‘Oh,’ I replied to them, ‘how can you hope to understand that, when the whole world has long been progressing along another road, and when downright falsehood is considered by us as truth, and when we expect and demand similar falsehood from others.’
– The Elder Zosima (The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky)
The culture of coffee
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Word
“The complete Word of God is not a multitude of words but a single Word of truth.” -Origen
Red Hook at Sunset
Red Hook entering sunset.