Long ago, I determined to look on the bright side of life. Earlier focusing on the dark side and possible problems and what others thought of me led to contemplations of suicide. My own. To balance my natural negative take...
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A Passionate Pursuit--1
Let’s begin a regular, continuing topic, OK? Once a month we’ll explore how much value God has, or doesn’t have, in our lives. Who is he? What’s he like? What does a connection with him look like? How can we craft that? I’m convinced that we need to identify those questions because our view of God, or the lack of it, will shape our lives. So this first post will start the process with two positions that represent the ends of the spiritual spectrum. Several years ago, a woman walked into Haagen-Dazs, and noticed Paul Newman...
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Dancing with the Devil
For too long, I justified myself with the excuse that dancing with the devil was justifiable if I didn’t slow dance. I’d edge as close to overt sin as I could without stepping over the line. Close enough to get some pleasure, but not too close to get trapped, to have guilt overwhelm the good times. In high school days, how much physical contact with girls was acceptable before it became sin? That became more subtle as an adult, how much information could I withhold, without actually lying, to give myself an advantage? Or, while remaining a nice guy, what balance should I strike between serving others and using others to serve myself? These are just a few of all those cases I could list.
That was fast dancing with the devil.
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Habituated
No, this may not qualify as unusual, but my email account got hacked. A friend forwarded an email he had received “from me,” with a link that obviously wasn’t from me. So, I changed the password that I’d kept for a dozen years, with just a few minor, rememberable tweaks, into a longer more exceptional one.
So, for the last two weeks, 90% of the times I sign in to my email...
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Sometimes You Win, Sometimes...
Some locals claim the upper Sacramento River, right under the I-5 bridge in Dunsmuir, may yield the best trout fishing in California. Pines creep right down to the water’s edge of the gorgeous stream, yet leave enough space to cast and still not get hung up. Too often, anyway!
I’m not sure about the quality of fishing, but I did come to doubt the fisherman’s rationale, “The worst day fishing beats the best day working.”
I’d caught one and lost another when...
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image by beerboard.tv
Home Brew
I realize some of my socially conservative readers may not fully agree with the topic of this post, but I encourage you to read on. Beer brewing provides a metaphor for how spiritual formation, or following Jesus, gets sidetracked so easily, often without our knowledge. Enjoy the message even as you avoid the brew. For those who make home brew, you’ll quickly get the point! For those who imbibe but don’t brew, you’ll like it too!
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Heaven Tickets?
What’s the admission ticket to heaven? Do all get one, or just a select few? How do you obtain one of these, if you so desire? What if you don’t desire heaven as a destination? That issue has thrust itself into the conversation, with books like Rob Bell’s Love Wins, and a recent article on universalism by Ron Corson.
Bell and Corson and others suggest that in the end, all go to heaven. This short page can’t examine that issue in depth, but I do want to explore a foundational issue that we need to grasp before we reach a conclusion. Following Jesus...
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Friendly Fire
Rich began riding bikes a few years before me, on a Honda 350. I soon bought a similar one, then Rich moved up to a larger ride, the Harley Super Glide. Yeah, a few decades back. We’d rag on each other’s bikes—Rich defending Harleys, me defending Hondas. OK, once his wife thought we were ready to break out the fists, but it was a friendly rivalry. Let’s just call it spirited, OK? Much like the comparison in the pic above of a Harley and a Honda.
So when he T-boned me in Blythe, CA, it was accidental, right?
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