Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Tuesday Tome - Two Books by Rowan Williams

Two little Rowan Williams books are in a batch of recent arrivals. I'm impressed with the way Williams takes big subjects and presents them in an approachable and pastoral way.

Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief
Publisher's description...
What does it mean to believe in God? Can God possibly be almighty in the midst of so much evil and disaster? How am I to understand the meaning of Jesus Christ's ministry and resurrection? To what purpose is the church called? And what does it really mean to follow Christ in today's broken world? Tying together the answers to all of these questions and addressing perplexities such as the possibility of miracles and how to read the Bible, Rowan Williams demonstrates that each of the basic tenets of Christian faith flows from one fundamental belief: that God is completely worthy of our trust. With vast knowledge of Christian history and theology and characteristically elegant prose, Rowan Williams is a superb and compassionate guide through the richness and depth of Christian faith.

Why Study the Past?: The Quest for the Historical Church
Publisher's description...
The well-worn saying about being condemned to repeat the history we do not know applies to church history as much as to any other kind. But how are Christians supposed to discern what lessons from history need to be learned?

In this small but thoughtful volume, respected theologian and churchman Rowan Williams opens up a theological approach to history, an approach that is both nonpartisan and relevant to the church's present needs. As he reflects on how we consider the past in general, Williams suggests that how we consider church history in particular remains important not so much for winning arguments as for clarifying who we are as time-bound human beings. Good history is a moral affair, he advises, because it opens up a point of reference that is distinct from us yet not wholly alien. The past can then enable us to think with more varied and resourceful analogies about our identity in the often confusing present.

Monday, June 29, 2015

Monday Music - I Press On

https://daveburkum.bandcamp.com/track/i-press-on

I press on to take hold of that
For which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
I press on to take hold of that
For which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

I press on through thick & thin
I press on every day
I press on through the lose & win
For I know He's the Way

I press on to take hold of that
For which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

"I Press On" by Dave Burkum from Fireside: Worship & Scripture Songs,
© Copyright 2006 by Dave Burkum. Listen / Download / Purchase

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Sunday Supplication - Able to Love

O God, you have called us to love you with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Help us to remember, as Jesus said, that everything you’ve commanded us to do is summed up in loving you and loving others. Give us the grace and hearts we need to be people who are truly able to love.

You know our weaknesses and you understand our limitations. Thank you for the forgiveness, hope, and redemption you give.  In the same way, help us to forgive, to encourage, and to bless others. You are gracious and merciful to us, and we ask you to make us gracious and merciful to others.

Thank you, O God, that we can come to you with our requests and needs. Thank you that you can be found, that your door is open, and that you are generous. Grant us sensitivity toward the needs of others around us. Help us to be available, approachable, and generous.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Friday Favorites - James Taylor: Before This World

https://youtu.be/p3oTFRusCcQ?list=PL0gxBcF2Ofh6xayL6bIbE08CDveAJBjB6

Cheri gave me the new James Taylor CD for my birthday. It's a beautiful collection of new songs that did not disappoint. What a treat!  Click on the player window above to hear one of my favorite tracks. Click here to listen to the whole album.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Thursday Thinking - How the Spirit Changes Us


How long has it been since you gave some serious thought to the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in your life? Here is a thoughtful excerpt from Greg Boyd's book, Seeing Is Believing, recently posted on the RENEW BLOG.

How the Holy Spirit Changes Us

The Bible is full of stories of people who experienced the presence of God. If we are to experience something similar today, we must, through the Spirit, cultivate the spiritual capacity of an inner life to see and hear spiritual things. Paul wrote:
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:17-18)
This Spirit-inspired “seeing” of Jesus changes our being. As we see his glory, we are transformed into his likeness “from one degree of glory to another.” This is, in essence, how the fruit of the Spirit is produced in our lives. When we cease from striving in our own effort and yield to the Holy Spirit, and when our faith ceases to be merely intellectual and rather becomes experiential and concrete, our lives begin to reflect Christ’s image.

It is what we see, not how hard we strive, that determines what we become.

This “seeing” is of a spiritual sort. Paul uses the Greek word katoptrizo, which literally means “to look at a reflection.” This reflection is in our minds. According to the teaching of Paul that follows the passage quoted above, believers have an ability to see in the mind. The “image of God,” the “face of Jesus Christ,” enlightens the mind of the believer. The mind of the believer can be “controlled by the Spirit” (Rom 8:6).

The place where the Spirit produces a reflection of “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 4:6) is in the regenerate mind of the believer. It is through this spiritual mental vision that we are “transformed by the renewing of [our] minds” (Rom 12:2) and set free from the pattern of this world.
While all believers have this capacity, however, we don’t necessarily use it. Though we are regenerate and have a new nature, we still struggle to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor 10:5). We yet have aspects of our minds veiled and thus experience ourselves as though we were not all God says we are in Christ. Our tendency to trust our own efforts to bring about transformation plays into this ongoing veiling of our minds.

We need to recover our sense of dependency on the Spirit of God rather than our own effort and recover the use of the imagination in our relationship with God to experience the transformation of which Paul spoke. We need to learn how to “fix our eyes on Jesus” and “set [our] minds on things that are above.”

We become what we imaginatively see. If all we imaginatively see are the vivid re-presentations that have been instilled in us by the pattern of this world, we will be conformed to the pattern of this world. But if we learn to imaginatively see “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 4:6), we will be transformed “from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor 3:18).

—Adapted from Seeing Is Believing, pages 86-94.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Wednesday Words - For Marriage

Happy 60th Wedding Anniversary to my dad and mom, Lowell and Dixie. Your friendship, partnership, and love have blessed so many people. Cheri and I love you and we're praying that you have a sweet day!

Proverbs 31:10, 11, 23, 25
A wife of noble character who can find?
    She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
    and lacks nothing of value.
Her husband is respected at the city gate,
    where he takes his seat among the elders of the land..
She is clothed with strength and dignity;
    she can laugh at the days to come.



Here is a blessing for you on this special day...

As spring unfolds the dream of the earth,
May you bring each other’s hearts to birth.

As the ocean finds calm in view of land,
May you love the gaze of each other’s mind.

As the wind arises free and wild,
May nothing negative control your lives.

As kindly as moonlight might search the dark,
So gentle may you be when light grows scarce.

As surprised as the silence that music opens,
May your words for each other be touched with reverence.

As warmly as the air draws in the light,
May you welcome each other’s every gift.

As elegant as dream absorbing the night,
May sleep find you clear of anger and hurt.

As twilight harvests all the day’s color,
May love bring you home to each other.


“For Marriage” by John O’Donohue from To Bless the Space Between Us (Doubleday),
© 2008 by John O’Donohue.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Tuesday Tome - All the Light We Cannot See

I'm  about two thirds of the way through this novel which just won the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It's been alright so far, but I can't say it's really bowled me over. I'm hoping the last third will really start connecting the dots and that the plot starts to gel a bit more. My wife has already read the book and really liked it, so I'm trusting there are good things to come.

ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE
by Anthony Doerr

Review from Booklist
A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr’s magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed. It rests, historically, during the occupation of France during WWII, but brief chapters told in alternating voices give the overall—and long—­narrative a swift movement through time and events. We have two main characters, each one on opposite sides in the conflagration that is destroying Europe. Marie-Louise is a sightless girl who lived with her father in Paris before the occupation; he was a master locksmith for the Museum of Natural History. When German forces necessitate abandonment of the city, Marie-Louise’s father, taking with him the museum’s greatest treasure, removes himself and his daughter and eventually arrives at his uncle’s house in the coastal city of Saint-Malo. Young German soldier Werner is sent to Saint-Malo to track Resistance activity there, and eventually, and inevitably, Marie-Louise’s and Werner’s paths cross. It is through their individual and intertwined tales that Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably re-creates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers.High-Demand Backstory: A multipronged marketing campaign will make the author’s many fans aware of his newest book, and extensive review coverage is bound to enlist many new fans. --Brad Hooper

Monday, June 22, 2015

Monday Music - Turtle on a Fence Pole


https://daveburkum.bandcamp.com/track/turtle-on-a-fence-pole

I saw a curious sight as I walked last week
Down the Old Mill road along Poplar Creek.
On a fence post top at least four feet high,
Sat a big old turtle watching me pass by.
Front legs, back legs swimming in air;
I said, "Hey big fella, how'd you get up there?"

"What a fine view! Well bless my soul!,"
Said the big box turtle on the old fence pole.
How he got to the top I couldn't tell,
But I think it's safe to say he had a little help.

Once upon a time I heard someone say,
"I'm a self-made man, done it all my way."
I guess he forgot or he didn't care
About all the folks who helped him get up there.
The smarter you get, the more there is to know;
If you think you've arrived, you've got a ways to go.

"What a fine view! Well bless my soul!,"
Said the big box turtle on the old fence pole.
How he got to the top I couldn't tell,
But I think it's safe to say he had a little help.
Just a little help.

Front legs, back legs swimming in air;
I said, "Hey big fella, how'd you get up there?"

"What a fine view! Well bless my soul!,"
Said the big box turtle on the old fence pole.
How he got to the top I couldn't tell,
But I think it's safe to say he had a little help. 

"Turtle on a Fence Pole" by Dave Burkum, © Copyright 2002 by Dave Burkum.
Click Here to Listen / Buy / Download

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Sunday Supplication - Strengthen Our Hearts

O God, we acknowledge that every good thing comes from you. Fill us with good thoughts and a love for the things that are right and good. Lead us and strengthen us to do those good things you have in mind for us to do.

O God, each of us has our own struggle to be obedient to you. Help us all to remember that everyone around us has similar struggles. When others sin against us, make us as charitable toward them as you are to us. Help us all to find our way back to you. When any one of us is sinned against, give us understanding and forgiving hearts. Make us willing to forgive because you have forgiven us.

When we become downcast, Father God, strengthen our hearts to hope in you. Give us faith to trust in you and to praise you all our days. Protect us from discouragement, and encourage us by your word, your people, your promises, and all that is beautiful and true.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Wednesday Words - Honey

http://www.jennortonartstudio.com/artwork/servants-and-celebrations/

Only calmness will reassure
the bees to let you rob their hoard.
Any sweat of fear provokes them.
Approach with confidence, and from
the side, not shading their entrance.
And hush smoke gently from the spout
of the pot of rags, for sparks will
anger them. If you go near bees
every day they will know you.
And never jerk or turn so quick
you excite them. If weeds are trimmed
around the hive they have access
and feel free. When they taste your smoke
they fill themselves with honey and
are laden and lazy as you
lift the lid to let in daylight.
No bee full of sweetness wants to
sting. Resist greed. With the top off
you touch the fat gold frames, each cell
a hex perfect as a snowflake,
a sealed relic of sun and time
and roots of many acres fixed
in crystal-tight arrays, in rows
and lattices of sweeter latin
from scattered prose of meadow, woods.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

"Honey" by Robert Morgan, from A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry, edited and with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz, © Copyright 1996 by Czeslaw Milosz.

Also appears in The Strange Attractor: New and Selected Poems by Robert Morgan, © Copyright 2004 by Robert Morgan.


Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Tuesday Tome - Draw the Circle

http://smile.amazon.com/Draw-Circle-Day-Prayer-Challenge/dp/0310327121/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434420422&sr=1-1&keywords=draw+a+circle+40+day+prayer
I'm reading this book right now with two dear friends who are now less 40 days away from their wedding. Thanks for inviting me to read and pray with you, Ted and Kathren. I'm glad to be on the journey with you.

A few quotations from Draw the Circle: 40 Days of Prayer by Mark Batterson...
“When we try to make things go faster, we usually slow things down. When we try to make things easier, we usually make them harder. Don’t try to manufacture your own miracles. Don’t try to answer your own prayers. Don’t try to do God’s job for Him. Stay humble. Stay patient. Stay focused."

“Sometimes the purpose of prayer is to get us out of circumstances, but more often than not, the purpose of prayer is to get us through them. I’m certainly not suggesting we shouldn’t pray deliverance prayers, but there are times we need to pray prevailing prayers. We need to ask God to give us the grace to sustain, the strength to stand firm, and the willpower to keep on keeping on.” 

“Prayer turns us into first-class noticers. It helps us see what God wants us to notice. The more you pray, the more you notice; the less you pray, the less you notice. It’s as simple as that."

Monday, June 15, 2015

Monday Music - Breathe a Little Deeper




Abel made a sacrifice.
Enoch somehow never died.
Noah built an ark
And left the world outside.
Abraham didn’t have a son,
But by faith he traveled far.
His children now outnumber
The stars.

Take another step,
Breathe a little deeper,
Straighten up and take a stand.
Walk another mile,
You’re headed for a better land.

Isaac blessed and prophesied.
Jacob worshipped, staff in hand.
Joseph spoke of exodus from
Egypt’s land.
Moses chose to be mistreated--
Pharoah’s pleasures he would deny.
The Red Sea parted and the ground the children walked
Was dry.

Take another step,
Breathe a little deeper,
Straighten up and take a stand.
Walk another mile,
You’re headed for a better land.
Think about the joy,
Don’t forget the promise,
Let the Spirit lead the way.
Tomorrow’s gonna come--
It’s gonna be a better day.

Gideon, Barak, and Samson--
There’s not time enough to tell
Tales of Jephthah, King David,
And Samuel.
There were those who closed the mouths of lions;
Those who quenched the fury of the flames.
They suffered this world’s hateful scorn
And shame.

Still they took another step,
Breathed a little deeper;
They weren’t afraid to take a stand.
They walked another mile,
Headed for a better land.
They thought about the joy--
Thought about the promise;
They let the Spirit lead the way.
They gave a little more,
Hopin’ for a better day.

So take another step,
Breathe a little deeper,
Straighten up and take a stand.
Walk another mile,
You’re headed for a better land.
Think about the joy,
Don’t forget the promise,
Let the Spirit lead the way.
Tomorrow’s gonna come--
It’s gonna be a better da 

"Better Day" words and music by Dave Burkum from Breathe a Little Deeper. © Copyright 2000 by Dave Burkum. Listen / Download / Purchase


Sunday, June 14, 2015

Sunday Supplication - Order and Purpose

O God, you are a faithful provider and you give order and purpose to our lives. We ask you to help us put aside all the things that are hurtful. Help us to seek the things that are true and uplifting and healing and beautiful.

Father, forgive us our sins, and help us, in gratitude to you, to forgive those who sin against us. We recognize that our hearts are so prone to pride and unforgiveness. It is hard for us to confess our sins, even to you. Help us to see clearly how we so often offend you. And help each of us to have the humility to pray, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

O God, give us eyes to see the good things you have prepared in advance for us to do. Give us hearts that delight in your will, feet that walk in your ways, and spirits that longs to honor you in all we do. Help us to wake up and get honest about any disobedience, apathy, or distractions that are keeping us from faithfulness to you.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Friday, June 12, 2015

Friday Favorites - Love & Mercy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0nl0GmT_3o

I'm looking forward to seeing the new Brian Wilson movie, Love and Mercy. I've read some pretty great reviews and here are links and excerpts for two of them:

Perhaps it was Brian’s preternatural vulnerability that situated him, then, to appreciate the experience of grace in such transcendent and enduring terms, as songs like “She Knows Me Too Well” and, much later, “Love and Mercy” attest. Or take Pet Sounds’s stunning hymn to ‘love to the loveless shown’, “You Still Believe in Me”. The grace of Asher’s lyric is underlined by the abundant giftedness of its damaged producer: “I know perfectly well I’m not where I should be… And after all I’ve done to you, how can it be, You still believe in me”.

The film's title alludes to the opening track of Wilson's 1988 debut solo album. The film delivers both in spades. Mercy is certainly shown to Wilson in the film, which skips the darkest period of his life, a fifteen-year-stretch between 1968 and the transformation that came after Melinda Ledbetter (his wife-to-be) met him. During those lost years, he was in and out of psychiatric hospitals, battling auditory hallucinations, spending much of his time in bed, using drugs, and grossly overeating (his weight soared to more than 300 pounds).

Melinda (played by Elizabeth Banks) is really the central character in the '80s narrative, and her perseverance and genuine concern for Brian's well-being ultimately get him out of his abusive relationship with Dr. Landy. Love & Mercy celebrates the gift of Wilson's music by focusing on his most fertile creative period and the light shining through after almost two decades of darkness.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Thursday Thinking - Parenting: Love & Merit


Here's an excerpt from an interesting article by David Brooks. In "Love & Merit," Brooks gives parents (and teachers and childcare providers) some very important things to think about.
Children are bathed in love, but it is often directional love. Parents shower their kids with affection, but it is meritocratic affection. It is intermingled with the desire to help their children achieve worldly success.

Very frequently it is manipulative. Parents unconsciously shape their smiles and frowns to steer their children toward behavior they think will lead to achievement. Parents glow with extra fervor when their child studies hard, practices hard, wins first place, gets into a prestigious college.

This sort of love is merit based. It is not simply: I love you. It is, I love you when you stay on my balance beam. I shower you with praise and care when you’re on my beam.

The wolf of conditional love is lurking in these homes. The parents don’t perceive this; they feel they love their children in all circumstances. But the children often perceive things differently.

Children in such families come to feel that childhood is a performance — on the athletic field, in school and beyond. They come to feel that love is not something that they deserve because of who they intrinsically are but is something they have to earn.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE PIECE

David Brooks is an American conservative political and cultural commentator who writes for The New York Times.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Wednesday Words - Splitting an Order


I like to watch an old man cutting a sandwich in half,
maybe an ordinary cold roast beef on whole wheat bread,
no pickles or onion, keeping his shaky hands steady
by placing his forearms firm on the edge of the table
and using both hands, the left to hold the sandwich in place,
and the right to cut it surely, corner to corner,
observing his progress through glasses that moments before
he wiped with his napkin, and then to see him lift half
onto the extra plate that he had asked the server to bring,
and then to wait, offering the plate to his wife
while she slowly unrolls her napkin and places her spoon,
her knife and her fork in their proper places,
then smoothes the starched white napkin over her knees
and meets his eyes and holds out both old hands to him.


"Splitting an Order" by Ted Kooser, from Splitting an Order (Copper Canyon Press) © Copyright 2014 by Ted Kooser, and from Valentines, © University of Nebraska Press, 2008.

Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Tuesday Tome - The Road to Character

Here is another excerpt from The Road to Character by David Brooks. I'm enjoying the book a great deal and look forward to reading this book with a reading group in September.

"Sin is a necessary piece of our mental furniture because it reminds us that life is a moral affair. No matter how hard we try to reduce everything to deterministic brain chemistry, no matter how hard we try to reduce behavior to the sort of herd instinct that is captured in big data, no matter how hard we strive to replace sin with nonmoral words, like “mistake” or “error” or “weakness,” the most essential parts of life are matters of individual responsibility and moral choice: whether to be brave or cowardly, honest or deceitful, compassionate or callous, faithful or disloyal. When modern culture tries to replace sin with ideas like error or insensitivity, or tries to banish words like “virtue,” “character,” “evil,” and “vice” altogether, that doesn’t make life any less moral; it just means we have obscured the inescapable moral core of life with shallow language. It just means we think and talk about these choices less clearly, and thus become increasingly blind to the moral stakes of everyday life." [p. 54]

Monday, June 08, 2015

Monday Music - The River



Rolling river-
Your arms around a loved one who lies sleeping.
Living water-
The sound of baby's laughter, and a promise you've been keeping.
Currents moving through your being;
Flooding you with reasons to be.

It's flowing down from the hand of my Father.
And its streams abound in all that's beautiful and true.
And it's time you found the pure and crystalline headwaters
Of the river that runs in you;
The river that runs in you.

Rolling river-
A selfless act of kindness toward your neighbor.
Living water-
The joy of loyal friendship, and the fruit of honest labor.
A silver ribbon in the moonlight;
A golden strand that shimmers through your days.

It's flowing down from the hand of my Father.
And its streams abound in all that's beautiful and true.
And it's time you found the pure and crystalline headwaters
Of the river that runs in you;
The river that runs in you.

Rolling river-
The tears you shed when someone else is aching.
Living water-
The time you take to listen, and a sacrifice you're making.
Through the depths of your fulfillment,
Dancing down the rapids of your dreams.

It's flowing down from the hand of my Father.
And its streams abound in all that's beautiful and true.
And it's time you found the pure and crystalline headwaters
Of the river that runs in you;
The river that runs in you.

"The River," words and music by Dave Burkum, from, So Far to Go.
© Copyright 1994 by Dave Burkum. Listen / Download / Purchase

Sunday, June 07, 2015

Sunday Supplication - More and More Each Day

O Lord God, lead and keep your Church by your steadfast grace and love. Help us to proclaim your truth with boldness. Help us to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with you.

We see our sin and we recognize our need for forgiveness and transformation.  We are thankful for your promise to forgive us and purify us as we confess our sins. And as you have forgiven us our sins, help us to be quick to forgive those who have sinned against us.

O God, help us to know you more and more each day as we follow Christ, listen to your word, and surrender ourselves to your Spirit. Lead, teach, transform, shape, and strengthen us, that we might delight in your will, and walk in your ways to the glory of your name.

Through Christ, we pray. Amen.

Saturday, June 06, 2015

Saturday Smile - New TSA Agent Protocol

Don't know if you saw this important news story posted in The Onion this week.
Thanks to my son, Tyler, for bringing it to my attention.


ARLINGTON, VA— Following the release of a report indicating that the agency failed 95 percent of security tests, the Transportation Security Administration announced Tuesday that agents will now simply stand at airport checkpoints and remind all passengers that everybody will eventually die someday.

Do yourself a favor and CLICK HERE to keep reading. 

Friday, June 05, 2015

Thursday, June 04, 2015

Thursday Thinking - Women in Ministry


Dr. Ben Witherington did his doctoral thesis on women in the New Testamen with C.K. Barrett at the University of Durham in England. His first three published scholarly books were on this subject. On his blog, he recently republished a post dealing with the usual objections to women in ministry. The objections, he says, come from a wide variety of church traditions. Check it out by clicking the link below.

Why Arguments Against Women in Ministry Aren't Biblical

Bible scholar Ben Witherington is Amos Professor of New Testament for Doctoral Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary and on the doctoral faculty at St. Andrews University in Scotland. A graduate of UNC, Chapel Hill, he went on to receive the M.Div. degree from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. from the University of Durham in England. He is now considered one of the top evangelical scholars in the world, and is an elected member of the prestigious SNTS, a society dedicated to New Testament studies.

Wednesday, June 03, 2015

Wednesday Words - Prayer


Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important
calls for my attention—the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage

I need to buy for the trip.
Even now I can hardly sit here

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside
already screeching and banging.

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath.
Why do I flee from you?

My days and nights pour through me like complaints
and become a story I forgot to tell.

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence.

"Prayer" by Marie Howe, from The Kingdom of Ordinary Time.
© W. W. Norton & Company, 2008.

Tuesday, June 02, 2015

Tuesday Tome - Not God's Type

This book is a new arrival. I recently read a review about it and thought it might be an interesting story. I'll let you know.

From the publisher's description...
This is the story of a glorious defeat.

Ordway, an atheist academic, was convinced that faith was superstitious nonsense. As a well-educated college English professor, she saw no need for just-so stories about God. Secure in her fortress of atheism, she was safe (or so she thought) from any assault by irrational faith.

But then something happened . . . How did she come to "lay down her arms" in surrender to Christ – and then, a few years later, enter into the Catholic Church?

This is the moving account of her unusual journey. It is the story of an academic becoming convinced of the truth of Christianity on rational grounds – but also the account of God's grace acting in and through her imagination.

It is the tale of an unfolding, developing relationship with God, told with directness and honesty – and of a painful surrender at the foot of the Cross. It is the account of a lifelong, transformative love of reading – and the story of how a competitive fencer put down her sabre to pick up the sword of the Spirit.

Above all, this book is a tale of grace, acting in and through human beings but always issuing from God and leading back to Him. And it is the story of a woman being brought home.
Dr. Holly Ordway is the chair of the Department of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University. She holds a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst; her academic work focuses on imagination and literature in apologetics, with special attention to the work of CS Lewis and Charles Williams. 

Monday, June 01, 2015

Monday Music - If We Confess




If we confess our sins
He is faithful and just
And will forgive us our sins
And purify us from all unrighteousness.

If we confess our sins
He is faithful and just
And will forgive us our sins
And purify us from all unrighteousness.

O Lord, I have sinned,
Touch my life, make me pure again.
I wanna walk in the light,
Renew my spirit, make it right again,
Deliverer, Redeemer, and Friend.

If we confess our sins
He is faithful and just
And will forgive us our sins
And purify us from all unrighteousness.

"If We Confess" from Songs for the Real World,
Words and Music by Dave Burkum, © Copyright 1992.