Tag Archives: faith

Forget About the Price Tag

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 You know for yourselves that I worked with my own hands to support myself and my companions.  In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”                               –Paul, as quoted in Acts 20:34-35

Few things seem to rile people up quite like a church’s finances. How it generates income, what it does with it when it gets it, and so on. It’s one of the things I want to explore next year: Exactly how does each church view its role in the economy; what is the purpose of tithing; how much should clergy get paid; can I get a Benz as an ordination present? Continue reading →

Love: Chaos or Choice?

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It might be the insomnia, but Ryan Reynolds is a terrific actor.  I just finished watching the movie Chaos Theory (2007), and I believe it has sneaked onto my top 5 list.

The Departed, Gladiator, and Inception still take the cake of course, but this is a different category of art altogether.  It doesn’t betray your expectations with twists like a Scorsese flick and it doesn’t blow your mind like Inception.  It’s more subtle:  It takes you by the hand and walks you through this plethora of emotions you never knew you had, then it sits you down, looks you in the eye, and speaks truth.  I’ll be honest, from the guy who did Van Wilder and Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place, I was not expecting this. Continue reading →

Washing Feet and Wiping Butts

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I was right:  Those first two days of Vacation Bible School were deceptively good – the “honeymoon period,” you might say.  When the little ones came in yesterday morning, it was like someone had replaced the girls’ kneecaps with springs and their mouths with…well, really talkative mouths.  The boys weren’t much better; every activity automatically turned into an epic battle to the death.  Holding hands to cross the street was a tug-of-war contest; paper plate tambourines turned into bludgeoning weapons; not even Baby Moses was safe, since his clay basket was clearly better suited for bombing helpless victims.  All told, their behavior turned most heinous. Continue reading →

Time Travel, Kids, and VBS

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 “Always end the name of your child with a vowel…so that when you yell, the name will carry.”                    -Bill Cosby

The VBS Time Machine!

So I have been on a bit of a kid kick the past few posts, what with the turtle story and the rant about the park shooting and whatnot. In hindsight, I think it was all subconscious preparation for the week that started yesterday: Vacation Bible School – “Time Travel with Moses and Miriam”.

What every kid lies in bed dreaming about when school ends for the summer; where every parent can’t wait to drop their kids off so they can go golfing or to the spa; what every college graduate volunteers at in their spare time. Ok, maybe it’s only the graduates who work nights and have no lives during the day. Regardless, I get to lead thirty sugar-ridden 4 – 10 year olds in singing songs about Moses and Miriam during the campus chapel’s VBS this week. We’re using time machines to talk to ancient Hebrews, taking nature walks, making clay baskets for Baby Moses – the whole sha-bang. And after the first two days, I am invigorated. Continue reading →

Because You’re Never Too Old for Story Time

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I thought I would try something different today. If anyone is good at drawing, it definitely needs some more illustrations:

A real turtle that I saw the day after I originally published this post!

Once upon a time, there was a Turtle. He was born on a foggy, rainy day. When he poked his head out of the shell that had been his home for so many weeks, he felt a cool mist breeze over his little turtle body. He looked around at his brothers and sisters who were still in their eggs, and he decided to go exploring – after all, he was hungry!

What he didn’t know was that his mother had built the nest just a few feet away from a steep slope high above a stream. Continue reading →

Turn the News Back On

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In the movie Blood Diamond, Leonardo DeCaprio plays a diamond smuggler in the bloody, war-torn terrain of Sierra Leone. When his American journalist/romantic interest counterpart asks how and why so much unconscionable violence – rape of women, mutilation of children, abduction of children as child soldiers – can arise in this part of the world, Leo coolly responds, “T.I.A. This Is Africa.”

That’s the attitude: Don’t try and figure it out, just accept it and move on. Continue reading →

Good Jokes and Bad Timing

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I’m reading a book right now by Mark Twain called How to Tell a Story and Other Essays. In the course of explaining the importance of “the pause” and not laughing at your own punch line, he gives an example from a storyteller named Artemus Ward:

He [Ward] would say eagerly, excitedly, “I once knew a man in New Zealand who hadn’t a tooth in his head” –here his animation would die out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he would say dreamily, and as if to himself, “and yet that man could beat a drum better than any man I ever saw.”

As I read it, I so wanted to chuckle to myself and revel in this high humor from an American literary legend. The thing is, I don’t get it. Continue reading →