you've got to be kidding me

This kid is hilariously cute! I love 'im. (click on the image for a close up)

What is the What

Recently read What is the What, my first Dave Eggers book. Bright, yet disturbing, the volume covers the real events of Valentino Achek Deng's life in fictional construction. Eggers works and succeeds to capture Deng's voice, which makes the volume less enjoyable to read, honestly. But the authenticity adds to the overwhelming shock of such a life.

Christianity Today review
Valentino Achek Deng
Dave Eggers
McSweeney's

Brill Journals

Brill publications puts out oodles of journals, theological and otherwise. Here are links to those online copies of their journals available for free in pdf format.

Novum Testamentum
Religion and Theology
Religion and the Arts
Journal of Religion in Africa
Horizons in Biblical Theology
Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches

A directory of all their journals.

email devotionals

You can sign up for a (sometimes) daily devotional written by me over at Park Baptist Church Devotionals.

I'm blue, like jazz

Sad today. Tried to catch a standby seat out of Pittsburgh to connect with my wife, son, sister, parents, and grandparents in WI only to sit through two flights with nary a ray of hope meeting me: 12:00 noon I hit the road and returned at 8:00 p.m.

So I came home and watched a really dumb movie, Idiocracy. It's dumb on purpose, and sort of funny, but it had to go overboard to make its point. Point made. But it was still overboard. Fine concept, but not worth anyone's time. This is sad too, because it's a satirical look at our culture intensely-degenerated, which I think it's good for people to see. Might help them reconsider their current concerns.

Then I just sat down with emergent-phenomenon Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller. And I quote,

I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. (1)

and,

If you would have asked me, I suppose I would have told you there was a God, but i could not have formulated a specific definition based on my personal experience. Perhaps it was because my Sunday school classes did much to help us memorize commandments and little to teach us who God was and how to relate to Him, or perhaps it was because they did and I wasn't listening. (4)

New LP album

"Let mercy come and wash away what I've done."

Who said that? Augustine? Paul? Nope.

Linkin Park

I am fully expecting their soon to be released, Minutes to Midnight, to be excellent in artistry and honesty.

Official Site
MySpace

Note: According to Wikipedia this is the first LP album to have profanity on one of their tracks. Too bad.

April 15, 2007 Sermon

April 15, 2007 Sermon Manuscripted Outline

from "The Weight of Glory": 2 of 2

"Meanwhile the cross comes before the crown and tomorrow is a Monday morning."

(from the essay "The Weight of Glory" in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses by C.S. Lewis)

from "The Weight of Glory"

"Salvation is constantly associated with palms, crowns, white robes, thrones, and splendour like the sun and stars. All this makes no immediate appeal to me at all, and in that respect I fancy I am a typical modern."

(from the essay "The Weight of Glory" in The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses by C.S. Lewis)

Ted Christman (son: Jonathan) gets props amidst an IM rant.

Psalm 22: Bulls of Bashan

Meditating on Psalm 22 today. Googled "Bulls of Bashan" and was enlightened by this Credenda/Agenda article.

Last quote from St. Francis

Money itself must be considered as no more than "pebbles." It is not to be carried even when journeying, any more than sack or wallet, bread or staff. Instead, the brothers must live by work and begging, and though work was better than begging, they must not be ashamed of begging, since doing so helped the friars to share life with the most despised of men, lepers, beggars and the non-possessors. (201)

God vs. Trees

Walk Two Moons, Sharon Creech

Over and over, I prayed the same thing. I prayed to trees. This was easier than praying directly to God. There was nearly always a tree nearby. (7)

St. Francis

Francis: A Biography of the Saint of Assisi, Michael De La Bedoyere

Learning for [Francis] was only another sort of possession, driving man into himself and separating man from man. Books only told of what great, good and brave men achieved, and substituted for the good life the false satisfaction of supposing that to know about sanctity, religion and heroism was much the same as living them. (151)

Exodus 12