One of my all-time favorite movies is 1986′s The Mission starring Jeremy Irons, Robert De Niro, and Liam Neeson. The soundtrack, by Ennio Morricone is haunting and beautiful.
Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro) is a former slave trader seeking atonement for the sin of killing his younger… Read More
The picture above is of the flowering cereus that blooms at night. The flowers are short lived, and some of these species bloom only once a year—for a single night.
The following are quotes from Richard Rohr‘s book Falling Upward…
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Our daily experience of this world is almost nothing like Plato’s world of universal and perfect forms and ideas; it is always filled with huge diversity, and variations on every theme from neutrino light inside of darkness, to male seahorses that bear their young, to the most extraordinary flowers that only open at night for no one to see.
Jesus had no trouble with the exceptions, whether they were… Read More
I wouldn’t even mind if you read these three posts (they’re not mind). Actually, I’d love for you to read them. And I kinda think you will love reading them. Um, what are you waiting for???!!?!
This post, A Few Things I’ve Learned As A Christian Outsider, by Benjamin Corey. Here’s a brief sample: “Theological labels have a way of making us crazy– we allow them to define us, give us identity, give our lives meaning, and all kind of other things that ultimately take the place I’ve learned only Jesus can fill.”
I hope your Friday is fantastic. Here are three fun videos and one free thing (maybe you will win):
1. VIDEO—JINXY JENKINS & LUCKY LOU.
This reminded me of the 1991 Martin Short movie Pure Luck. And also – I smiled the whole time while watching this video.
2. VIDEO—GIL FULBRIGHT FOR SENATE.
I especially love the part where he changes his… Read More
In Frederick Buechner‘s book Telling The Truth – The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale, he briefly describes a few people sitting in those pews on a Sunday morning…
“In the front pews the old ladies turn up their hearing aids, and a young lady slips her six year old a Lifesaver and a Magic Marker. A college sophomore home for vacation, who is there because he was dragged there, slumps forward with his chin in his hand. The vice-president of a bank who twice that week has seriously contemplated suicide places his hymnal in the rack.
A pregnant girl feels the life stir inside her.
A high-school math teacher, who for twenty years has managed to keep his homosexuality a secret… Read More
First, let me start with something light and funny.
I received the following e-mail from Andy Jones the other day:
“Working on some Celebrate Recovery stuff and came across these self evaluation questions…
Have you exaggerated yourself to make yourself look better? In what areas of your past have you used false humility?
Hahahahahahahahahaha
All pastors.”
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Richard Rohr, in his book Falling Upward, talks about the need to do “shadow work.” The following are quotes from chapter 11 – The Shadowlands…
Your shadow self… gradually detaches you from your not-so-bright persona (meaning “stage mask” in Greek) that you so diligently constructed in the first half of life.
Your stage mask is not bad, evil, or necessarily egocentric; it is just not “true.”
It is manufactured and sustained unconsciously by your mind; but it can and will die, as all fictions must die.
Persona and shadow are correlative terms.
Your shadow is what you refuse to see about yourself, and what you do not want others to see.
The more you have cultivated and protected a chosen persona, the more shadow… Read More
I love the scene in True Grit where Mattie Ross, determined not to get left behind, makes her horse cross the river and arrives safely on the other side (much to the surprise of Cogburn and LaBoeuf).
She was determined. She believed she could make it over.
She wasn’t willing to be left behind.
Adventure was waiting for her on the other side of the river.
She didn’t need a ferry.
Mattie Ross wasn’t a sissy.
She didn’t wait until everything was perfect or easy or guaranteed as a… Read More
Last week, I asked for my wife’s thoughts on how the Kingdom of God is a celebration. She wrote some things down and gave them to me. These are her words…
We’re all uniquely, beautifully created by God. All His children. Brothers and sisters – part of the same family.
We celebrate the beauty of God in one another – every time we encounter someone – whether it be a… Read More
In today’s episode of Leadership Bites (a six-minute leadership podcast), Andy Jones and I talk about working with young leaders. Here’s one of my favorite lines from our discussion: “Believing in them means saying… Read More
Each week on Sunday Shout Outs, I like to share the best bits of what I watched or read online recently. There’s no theme or common thread between these posts, but they are all thought-provoking and enjoyable.
This video, “Shake The Dust” by poet Anis Mojgani. His first line prolly had you a little worried…
This post, “Actually, Scratch That” by John Blase. Here’s my favorite part: “The timeline’s different for each of us, but at some point you have to stop fighting your parents or religion or 1950s America or your no-good-son-of-a-bitch-ex-spouse or quite possibly even… Read More
