Hmm... April 2010

(Humans) have never been good, they are not good and they never will be good.

Karl Barth

If the church is to be the witness God calls us to be, we must be ruthlessly honest with ourselves about the areas in which we are not where God wants us to be. And it is painfully obvious that one central area in which we are not remotely close to where God wants us to be is in our relationships with one another. Because of the pervasive, individualistic mindset of Western culture, modern Western Christians tend to view their relationship with God strictly as an individual thing. Church is usually thought of as a weekly, large-group gathering of believers who are for the most part strangers to one another. Even worse, we tend to identify the church as a building that simply houses individual Christians once a week for worship.

Gregory Boyd

We must face the fact that many different saviors can be smuggled in under the name "Jesus," just as many different deities can be disguised under the term "God" and vastly different ways of living can be promoted under the name "Christianity." Jesus can be a victim of identity theft, and people can say and do things with and in his name that he would never ever do.

Brian McLaren

God has "put forth" Jesus so that, through his faithful death, all those who belong to him can be regarded as having died. God raised him up so that, through his vindication, all those who belong to him can be regarded as being themselves vindicated.

N.T. Wright, Justification, page 206

I love talking about nothing. It is really the only thing I know anything about.

Oscar Wilde

Old Farmer’s Advice

• Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

• Words that soak into your ears are whispered … not yelled.

• Meanness don’t jes’ happen overnight.

• If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin’.

• Don’t corner nothin’ ya know is meaner than you are.

• It don’t take a very big person to carry a grudge.

• Ya cain’t unsay a cruel word.

• Most of the stuff people worry about ain’t never gonna happen anyway.

• Don’t judge folks by their relatives.

• Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

• Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.