Happy New Year

Dont worry about a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin: dont worry about a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right!

Rise up this mornin,
Smiled with the risin sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin, (this is my message to you-ou-ou:)

Singin: dont worry bout a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin: dont worry (dont worry) bout a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right!

Rise up this mornin,
Smiled with the risin sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin, this is my message to you-ou-ou:

Singin: dont worry about a thing, worry about a thing, oh!
Every little thing gonna be all right. dont worry!
Singin: dont worry about a thing - I wont worry!
cause every little thing gonna be all right.

Singin: dont worry about a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right - I wont worry!
Singin: dont worry about a thing,
cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin: dont worry about a thing, oh no!
cause every little thing gonna be all right!

Mon Soapbox

And this accomplished what?
Is one more American soldier coming home?
Does it feed or house even one more Iraqi child?
Will it bring stability to the region?
Will anyone rest better tonight knowing that a weak and powerless has-been dictator who was brought to power by the CIA is now dead?
Just what the world needs right now,
more meaningless bloodshed.
Right.

Searching for Me

A couple of years ago Hollywood released the movie "Traffic". I didn't see it. I had already seen the British version that it was based on. Over the holidays I rented it from Netflix and watched it again. It had been a long while. My babies were little the first time I saw it. Now they tower over me.

The series tells several interwoven stories of people whose lives are all affected by the heroin trade coming out of Pakistan. One particularly poignant story is of a government minister who's daughter becomes addicted to heroin. We watch as she and her family go through all of the typical stages of a family affected by drugs. Finally after she steals from the home and makes it look like a burglary the father puts her out and tells her, "You are not my daughter."

A while later, after dreaming that he is standing over his daughter's grave he begins to search for her. He does everything he can think of, including walking the streets at night. He finds a dealer who knows her and pays him a visit. After talking to him for a little while he gets ready to leave and the young man tells him, "I wish I had someone searching for me."The father finally finds his daughter passed out half dressed with a John standing over her demanding service for his money. The Father says, "That's my daughter." The John runs off and the father takes his daughter home. Once there he begins to talk to her. He tells her, " I love you. I love you unconditionally. You don't have to stop taking heroin. You don't have to stop anything. No matter what I will still love you."

How many of us, like the young dealer, are wistfully thinking, "I wish I had someone searching for me?". We spend so much of our lives it seems searching for love. How different our lives would be if we only woke up and realized that like the father desperately searching for his daughter to bring her safely home, love is searching for us. How would our lives and our feelings about ourselves change if we realized that His love is unconditional, we don't have to stop anything to receive it, we don't have to be anything to receive it, we can just BE.

You don't have to search for love.
Love is searching for you.
Love is searching for me.
Can't you hear him calling your name?

More Great Quotes

The instinct of nearly all societies
is to lock up
Anybody who is truly free. 

First, society begins
by trying to beat you up.

If this fails,
they try to poison you. 

If this fails too,

they finish
by loading honors on your head.

--Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)

It is better to deserve honors
and not have them 

than to have them
and not deserve them.

--Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Dignity does not consist
in possessing honors, 

but in deserving them.

--Aristotle

Joyeux Noel!

Christmas in Paris

Pascal

“Dieu est une sphère infinie, dont le centre est partout et la circonférence nulle part.”

God is an infinite sphere whose center is everywhere

and circumference is nowhere.

Blaise Pascal

Its pretty cliche at this point to lament the commercialization of Christmas. Its the same old complaint usually voiced in pretty much the same way. And each and every year I have to confess, I make and break the same promise - to not wait until the last minute to shop, to avoid the crowds, to finish early and bunker down safe at home for the duration. This year as I was once again fulfilling my annual tradition of breaking said promise, I found a new irritant rankling away on my nerves. It wasn't the crowds, it wasn't the end cap loaded with the animated dancing Santa's playing the saxophone for $14.99, and it wasn't the much harangued sales clerks. This year is was the Christmas muzak.

As I walked through the aisles of the local department store it seemed almost insidious to me. But apart from some very poor recording choices on the part of some very well known vocalist, there was something else that was bothering me. I think it was that so much of the music had so little to do with the actual event of the birth of Christ. And perhaps also to hear an event that is so sacred to me trivialized with brainless diddies about sleds and reindeer. But the most irritating to me were the songs of recording artist talking about what Christmas "means to me."

Is Christmas really open to our individual interpretation?

I mean the message seems pretty clear to me, and it is backed by prophesy going all the way to the fall of man and God's promise that one day Eve's heel would crush satan's head. ( Sorry, English majors, he doesn't get capitalized.) It isn't that I don't enjoy family, and cranberry sauce, lights and mistletoe, depending on who is standing directly underneath it, but as we are rushing about in a mad dash for that perfect gift, fighting over that space at the mall, and fussing at the person who had the nerve to sojourn down the same aisle at the same time as us, perhaps we do need to stop and take a deep breath and ponder our own interpretation of Christmas.

What images and words immediately come to our minds when we think of Christmas?

Lights
Presents
trees
food?

What about

stranded
pain
blood
tears?

Usually we don't hear those words in the latest Christmas jingle. But any woman who has given birth can tell you, they were very much a part of the Christmas equation. He came through water and blood, pain and anguish, and He left in water and blood, pain and anguish.
And when he did he left us with a very clear message and he gave us the interpretation.

Salvation
Hope
Deliverance

Mon Secret

"What makes the desert beautiful," said the little prince,
"is that somewhere it hides a well . . ."

Merci

quotes

Slartibartfast:...I'd much rather be happy than right any day.
Arthur Dent: And are you?
Slartibartfast: Ah, no. Well, that's where it all falls down, of course.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Where Grace Meets Truth

Sometimes when I am reading the Bible, some small seemingly innocuous little phrase will leap out at me and get a hook in my spirit. A little voice will tell me, "There is more there than meets the eye." And that one word, or small phrase will just rattle around in my spirit for days, weeks, and sometimes even months. Its been that way lately with the book of John. In the first chapter and the fourteenth verse John describes Jesus as being the One and Only who came from the Father full of grace and truth. That last bit of that phrase full of grace and truth has been nagging at me for months now, and I have found myself asking God over and over, "Where does grace meet truth?"

Recently, I rented a French movie titled Red. It was excellent. One of the main characters in the story is a retired French judge. Through an accident involving his dog he meets a young woman and they slowly develop a friendship. During the course of the friendship he challenges her to look deeper at the motivations for her own actions and that of others, and to question the true meaning of justice. At one point he speaks of the decisions he made as a judge and questions them. The young woman protest and tells him that his decisions were just. He responded by asking, "Were they? In every case that I have decided, had I been in the shoes of the defendant I would have done the exact same thing."

So I am asking the question, "Where does grace meet truth?" And I am thinking perhaps the answer is mercy.

Mercy made Jesus write in the dirt while rocks fell from condemning hands.
Mercy healed blinded eyes rather than judging them.
Mercy raised a widow's only son from a death bed.
Mercy lifted Peter from the swirling waves of a tempest tossed sea.
Mercy responded to a blind man crying out from the roadside whom everyone else was trying to shush.
Mercy cried out from a cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do."

Truth tells us the reality of our sinful situation. That none are righteous, and that in our sinful situation, we are without hope. Grace sees us there, in that place of destitution and touches those who are willing with the gift of divine salvation. If we are really walking in truth, we understand and are overwhelmed by how utterly undeserving we are of this precious gift of absolute forgiveness, and infinite love. And in that place where grace meets truth mercy is born, a mercy that causes us to go and do likewise - To forgive the seemingly unforgivable, to love the undeserving, to be generous to the ungrateful. Like the retired judge, we walk in a place of the constant knowledge of our own unworthiness and our master's boundless mercy. We understand that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags and the reality of the situation that we are all that thief on the cross, crying out to the Christ, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And rather than the judge, we reach out our hands in mercy and become living instruments of the healer.

Ahhhhhhhhhh. . . J'adore Paris!

Les Escaliers de Montmartre, Paris

Davey and Goliath

Hell's Bell's la partie deux

Well, I fell victim to the new Beta system with blogger and ended up messing up my old template. I did my best to redo it with my limited technical abilities, hence the changes. I'm not happy with them, but alas, here they are.
'Tis what it 'tis.

Tant pis. Quel dommage.
(Too bad. What a shame!)

Glass Houses

Well, it appears that housing is big on my mind right now....

I hate to admit that at times the obvious is the hardest thing in the world for me to grasp, but for a long time I didn't really understand the old saying "People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." Years of ministry and church involvement taught me the meaning. Those of us who lived through the eighties share the experience of watching the fall of televangelist Jim Bakker. Jimmy Swaggart railed against him, calling him a cancer on the body of Christ, only to have his own unsavory interactions with prostitutes publicly exposed a year later. One never knows if the rock we throw today might come crashing through our own window tomorrow . . .

There is a children's book titled, "There is a Nightmare in my Closet." And if truth be told there is a nightmare in every last one of our closets. All of us have allowed sin to get a foothold in our lives at one time or another. All of us have been swayed by our passions at one time or another. All of us have been selfish at one time or another, said things we shouldn't have and done things we shouldn't have done, made unwise choices, broken our promises, trusted the wrong person, been duped and deceived. When we are really honest, who are any of us to throw stones?

I wonder if we have any idea how much the words that we speak to and about each other are able to defile us? I was reading Isaiah six, you know the scripture about "I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips..." Then if you go on to verse 9 it it says, " Go and tell this people Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing but never perceiving".... and in verse ten it concludes "otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn and be healed."

I want to serve God with all of my heart, but I just get sooooo utterly tired of the way we treat each other and the way we talk to and about each other. I want to love with all my heart, and to be be a genuinely loving and kind person, but sometimes I just feel like the current of the quagmire that is swirling around me is just so powerful, I get sucked in. But of course greater is HE that is in me . . . I'm not trying to blame others for my own failures, just expressing how I feel right now.

St. Francis

"Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words."

House of Cards

There's a story in the Bible of two brothers. They approach the Messiah and make a request. They want to sit on His right and His left in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus responds by telling them they don't know what they are asking. He continues his response by teaching about extreme servanthood.

I think a lot of times we are the same way. I wonder if we know what we are asking God when we pray, and if we did would we still pray it?

We pray to grow in our love walk.
God responds by allowing someone to come into our life who's behavior is anything but lovable.

We pray to be more patient.
God allows us to wait longer.

We pray to be a purified.
God turns up the heat and allows our motivations to be exposed.

We pray for a spouse.
God tells us we need to learn to be less selfish.

We pray for a new job.
God tells us to be more productive where we are at.

We pray for rain, only to discover we have been inhabiting a paper house. We pray for wind, only discover a windy day isn't a good time to be living in a house of cards. Rain washes away impurities, and wind blows away everything that isn't stable.

So I wonder at times if when we pray, we know what we are asking, and if so, are we really ready for the answer?

Gypsy Rhythm

One of my acquaintances from school is a Jazz violinist. A while ago he spent some time in the Balkans living with Gypsies and learning their violin techniques. When he came back to the states he formed what is now known as the Gypsy Rhythm Project. I finally decided it was high time I went to hear his group and took along a friend who is also a talented violinist. They were performing at a very nice steak house. The music and the food were fabulous. During the performance I couldn't help but notice a man who appeared to be inebriated. He danced between the tables like Zorba the Greek, arms held above his head, fingers snapping away.
A while later he came up and pleaded with the band to play a request. His request was granted and before I knew it, he and his wife were dancing in the small space next to our table. I have never seen anything like it. He held her close, looked into her face and told her over and over, "You're my darling, you're my baby. You are the most beautiful woman in the world." I had never witnessed a man more profusely declaring his love for his wife. It was so beautiful. And even more extraordinary was the look on her face. It was evident that she believed every word to the core of her being.
Later in the evening when the band took a break, I was able to meet this dancing gentleman and discovered that he was not drunk, but was indeed a gypsy. He told me. "No one knows about our real culture."
And I must profess, that for me it is true. I know very little about gypsies. But watching that man completely uninhibited in pouring out his affection for his wife, I knew God was speaking to me and telling me, "That is how I want to love you if you would only receive it." For years I have known that I have difficulty receiving the love of God. I think that is true for a lot of us. Especially women who have been in abusive relationships in the past, or those who come from condemning or works oriented churches. But that night I got a breakthrough, and I wasn't at church, and I wasn't at prayer. Watching a gypsy dance with his wife in the candlelight by the side of my table, I finally understood the scripture that tells us that all of our righteousness is as filthy rags, and how utterly unworthy we are of that tremendous love God has for us - and yet, instead of being overwhelmed with my unworthiness, I was instead overwhelmed by the incredible generosity and wonder of such an incredible love. A love I want to drown in everyday.

Christianity Today?

This information was sent to me by a friend. I thought it worth sharing. For those of you who don't know, the above photo is a Nazi belt buckle which reads "God with us."

"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during recent years." - Adolf Hitler

Source: The Speeches of Adolf Hitler, vol. 1 (London, 1942), 871-72.

The most famous Christian of the 20th century was Adolf Hitler.

Sure, we call Hitler infamous today. But before he started gobbling up European countries like they were little bratwurst sausages, Hitler was famous as a world leader with high moral values and a distinctly Christian vision.

In fact, no present politician has more blatantly declared his Christianity than Hitler, or has had his faith so widely accepted. Millions of Christians around the world admired the savvy tyrant; a couple of his more recognizable fans included Britain’s Lloyd George and that all-American idol of idols, Charles Lindbergh. The most appealing of Hitler’s “Christian” attributes included:

•His morality. He did not smoke or drink and he abhorred pornography and homosexuality.

•His call for his nation to repent. “Providence withdrew its protection and our people fell… And in this hour we sink to our knees and beseech our almighty God that He may bless us, that He may give us the strength to carry on the struggle for the freedom, the future, the honor, and the peace of our people. So help us God.” (March 1936)

*His stand against secularism: “Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without religious foundation is built on air; consequently all character training and religion must be derived from faith….” (April 1933)

*His war on atheism: “We were convinced that the people need and require [the Christian] faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” (October 1933)

*His blending of church and state: “National Socialism neither opposes the Church nor is it anti-religious, but on the contrary it stands on the ground of a real Christianity… For their interests cannot fail to coincide with ours alike in our fight against the symptoms of degeneracy in the world of today, in our fight against a Bolshevist culture, against atheistic movement, against criminality, and in our struggle for a consciousness of a community in our national life…These are Christian principles!” (August 1934)

•His faith-based charity: “With a tenth of our budget for religion, we would thus have a Church devoted to the State and of unshakable loyalty.” (January 1939)

•His God-given mission to cleanse Germany of evil as personified by the Jews, liberals, homosexuals, labor leaders, homeless people, immigrants from inferior cultures, and the weak and sick. “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.” And, “We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit… We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press—in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess…” (March 1936)

•His patriotism and the belief that his nation’s weakness was because “...the watchword of German foreign policy ceased to be: preservation of the German nation by all methods; but rather: preservation of world peace by all means.”

•His condemnation of others who sought to use religion for personal gain. “Worst of all, however, is the devastation wrought by the misuse of religious conviction for political ends. In truth, we cannot sharply enough attack those wretched crooks who would like to make religion an implement to perform political or rather business services
for them. These insolent liars, it is true, proclaim their creed in a stentorian voice to the whole world for other sinners to hear; but their intention is not, if necessary, to die for it, but to live better.”

•His vow to end terrorism: “…we must not dodge this struggle, but prepare for it, and for this reason acquire armament which alone offers protection against violence. Terror is not broken by the mind, but by terror.”

•His devotion to the Ten Commandments, which he proclaimed the foundation of Nazi Germany: “The Ten Commandments are a code of living to which there’s no refutation. These precepts correspond to irrefutable needs of the human soul.”

Historians seem to have done their best to silence or suppress the outspoken Christianity of Hitler and the Third Reich. Why is this? It seems to me that there are many yet today who will follow any politician who "boldly" proclaims his Christian faith, ready to turn a deaf ear to any lies he may tell and a blind eye to whatever atrocities he may commit in the name of God, Christ and Country. Think about it.