While You're Waiting...

Please note: my blog is being upgraded, so bear with me if it looks a bit off now and again. In the meantime, feel free to laugh (and now even comment!) at the following semi-poem I tried to write in 1996. It reminds me why I can't rhyme...enjoy!

Genius

Drip, drip, take a sip
From the sliver that makes you quiver.
By the stone wall, with the gall
To provide no theory, so you're not teary.
Nag, nag--what a rhythm! Making you into a schism!
Cumulative--rushing, rushing!
Oh, how punitive--touching, touching!
So infatuating
Think you're graduating
When in kindergarden
Without sin to pardon.
Drifting to a stalemate without a conjunction;
But at this rate, you need it to function,
Caught in this torrent, quite abhorrent!
Going to a climax, smashed to shrapnel,
Strewn with no vector, all is just scrap, now!
POWER SURGE!

Infertility

[if you couldn't create...it's like stuff in parentheses. it's a loss...of sorts.]

The Door Magazine
Featuring interviews of Daniel Wallace (who wrote Big Fish) and Jon Trott from JPUSA. Also featuring a new comic by Which Circle?

[quoted at Jordon Cooper]

There can only be a community of peace when it does not rest on lies and injustice. Where a community of peace endangers or chokes truth and justice, the community of peace must be broken and battle joined. If the battle is then on both sides really waged for truth and justice, the community of peace, though outwardly destroyed, is made all the deeper and stronger in the battle over this same cause. But should it become clear that one of the combatants is only fighting for his own selfish ends, should even this form of the commuity of peace be broken, there is revealed that reality which is the ultimate and only tolerable ground of any community of peace, the forgiveness of sins.

--- from No Rusty Swords by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

More Than Double-edged...

On Wednesday, Liveprayer's Devotional contended that critics of the Bible portray it as hateful to cover their sins. The author referred to Canada's current hate-crime laws (now including "sexual orientation") as allowing this to happen, especially with the subject of homosexuality.

Yet somehow this doesn't answer some major questions:

1. If it's about the negative/neutral verses (or interpretations), when and how do people use it for hateful means?

2. If negative/neutral verses (or interpretations) potentially set up Christians for criticism, when are Christians wrong and others right?

[noticed at Been There...Still There]

Eat less; breath more.
Talk less; think more.
Ride less; walk more.
Clothe less; bathe more.
Worry less; work more.
Waste less; give more.
Preach less; practice more.

Unknown

When (evangelical) Christians Become The Issue

At The Heresy the other day, Leighton argued for more dialogue and diplomacy by Christians (especially evangelicals) rather than rude, judgmental moralizing. One commenter passionately suggested that some issues aren't just issues, and can't be ignored or compromised. He used the issue of abortion.

As per Christians, he used the typical devices: a sense of urgency/intensity, a scripture here, a hard blunt stance. Isn't this what makes people cringe? Isn't this what alienates people from (evangelical) Christians, especially if they talk about social issues?

But sometimes some Christians are "fundamentally different, not likely to change." Rejection or reservations by others only seems to make the stance more entrenched/serious. It might feel and seem safe and secure, but it also makes it easier to be naive/wrong/misled (might I say sin?). What if it becomes one-sided or intolerable? That wouldn't make it right. Yet some Christians seem willing to look extreme than sensitive, and that's the issue!

Conviction or stupidity is not proven by zeal.

(reflecting on recent comments at The Heresy)

Sometimes I'd rather have "keeping it sophisticated" than "keeping it simple". Simplicity is not always sensible (or sensitive).

Narrator from Conscience:

"We're sorry. The post you may/may not want to read has been aborted. It was an agonizing choice, but all rights were reserved by the author."