|
|
|
|
go here to buy my stock photography Alan Creech
Custom Search
Subscribe to my Flickr Photo feed
my recent posts |::
the right to bear arms in church stuff |::
my family faith communities |:: vineyard central blogs i read |::
aaron klinefelter
|
"Immediately he went over to Jesus and said, 'Hail Rabbi!" and he kissed him. Jesus answered him, 'Friend, do what you have come for.' Then stepping forward they laid hands on Jesus and arrested him. And behold, one of those who accompanied Jesus put his hand to his sword, drew it, and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, 'Put your sword back into its sheath, for all who take the sword will perish by the sword. (...Then he touched the servant's ear and healed him. —Luke 22:51) Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father and he will not provide me at this moment with more than twelve legions of angels?" —Matthew 26:49-53A new order was being ushered in. It's time to put the swords away, or the Glocks as the case may be. To have a constant attitude of carrying these weapons to use against other men is, as I see it, moving against the tide of the New Order in Christ. And He healed the man - even further into the new Way - not only not enacting vengeance on the perceived enemy, but showing Love. Love is, after all, ultimately the only tool able to make a sword into a plowshare. Labels: christian life, pacifism :::
:::
permalink ::: e-mail me ::: June 25, 2009 >> 2:02 PM two links I'm not usually a "linker" when it comes to blogging, but here and there something will hit me and I want to share it with you, whoever you are. Today I have two blog posts - linked in order of having read them - from two friends.
Labels: church, friends, theology :::
:::
permalink ::: e-mail me ::: June 21, 2009 >> 11:19 AM some pictures and some thoughts  There's my Father's Day breakfast. No, my children didn't wake in the early hours of the morning and make it and bring it to me in bed. Half of them aren't here at the moment - Mama's at work, Meaghan's at work, Katey just came home from spending the night at a friend's, Conor just woke up and McKenzie's at Mammaw and Pappaw's house. So, I made it myself and ate it myself. A little later, Katey, Conor and I will drive to meet my parents, probably in London, to eat together with them and pick up the Kenz. Then we'll come back home and stay out of the hot some more I guess. That'll be Father's Day for us. Oh, and I received nice cards from each of my children and a gift card to Sportsman's Warehouse - very nice. Here is the product of my labor yesterday in the garden. The tomatoes were getting a bit large, so I had to make a trip to Lowe's and get some wire fencing and stakes to cage them bad boys up. At the Garden Mother's suggestion (no, I'm not a pagan, I'm talking about Liz), I also made a climbing fence deal for the cucumbers there so they don't take over the garden. It was good, monastic work. I look forward to more of it as the crops develop. We also did a good bit of weeding, in which I took a good part, in the last couple of days. Along with the rain making what we planted go nuts, it also had fed the weeds a good bit, so we had to thin things out.As I was weeding I had a thought about the Scripture that tells us - generally speaking here - to just let the weeds and the wheat (crops) grow together, not to possibly uproot what you're trying to grow by going nuts pulling out all the weeds. Sure - make sense. Here's my thought: this is really more about not weeding in the younger, more tender years of your plants. You have possibly noticed that weeds and crop plants look a lot alike in the early days - hard to tell apart - and easy to pull up one with the other if you're too worried about it. You've got to be careful. But, when my tomatoes, for example, get more mature, larger, their identity is much more defined as something distinctly different than any weed around them. Weeding, at this point, can be important. Too many weeds can "steel" nutrients from the growing tomatoes, and water. Nice spiritual analogy there I think. And it helps to pull the pesky weeds out by the roots - otherwise they just grow back up too quickly. And mulch helps - that ground cover around and between your plants to keep in moisture and retard week growth. We use mowed grass clippings - works pretty well. Ah, the analogies keep on flowing at this point. Weeding, mulching, watering, staking and caging to guide the growth and protect them from high winds, etc. Lay that over your life and see where it fits. Peace to you. Labels: gardening, personal, spiritual formation :::
:::
permalink ::: e-mail me ::: June 19, 2009 >> 3:16 PM sacred heart 09  Father, we rejoice in the gifts of love we have received from the hear of Jesus your Son. Open our hearts to share his life and continue to bless us with his love. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. This is the convenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will place my law within them, and write it upon their hearts; I will be their God, and they shall be my people. —Jeremiah 31:33 Labels: church year, liturgy :::
:::
permalink ::: e-mail me ::: June 17, 2009 >> 9:09 PM oremus  Well, this is something that's been on my back burner for a while now and I thought this was as good a time as any to just get it started. Oremus means "let us pray," basically, in Latin. For our purposes here, it's a new podcast that I'll be doing about liturgical prayer and monastic practices for everyday Christians "in the world." This is something I've been thinking about doing for a while, almost a year. I actually sat down out back and recorded the first podcast last September and never did anything with it. I guess now I'm doing something with it.Praying the Liturgy of the Hours has been a very good thing for me for several years, even as sporadic as my practice has been sometimes. And I've loved being able to introduce this kind of prayer to others along the way. I have felt as if that, along with thinking about some other ways of living monastically "in the world" are a part of my personal vocation - part of it. So this will be some part of living that out for me. I hope it proves to be helpful for anyone who listens. The first issue is ready to go. I've set up a simple site to house the podcast episodes. You can check that out here. The podcast is also now available, all one episode of it, on iTunes. You can subscribe to the Oremus Podcast through this feed. The first episode is basically an introduction to the what and why of it, I pray one of the little hours from the LOTH, etc. I hope, in the future, to be talking about some "how-tos" of praying the Office, other contemplative ways of prayer/meditation, interview friends from different Christian traditions who pray in this way, etc. I'm looking forward to it. Pray for me that I keep to this and make it a regular thing. Labels: liturgical prayer, oremus, podcasting :::
:::
permalink ::: e-mail me ::: June 14, 2009 >> 10:23 PM the Body of Christ  Down in adoration falling, This great Sacrament we hail; Over ancient forms of worship Newer rites of grace prevail; Faith will tell us Christ is present, When our human senses fail. Word made flesh, the bread of nature, By his word to flesh he turns; Wine into his blood he changes: What though sense no change discerns? Only be the heart in earnest, Faith its lesson quickly learns. Today is the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ - Corpus Christi. We celebrated in a special way this central part of our worship as the Body - the Eucharistic Presence of Jesus in our midst, given as our spiritual food. It's not the only way Jesus is present among us, or in us, but this is one of the more tangible ways we can receive Him, come into union with Him, experience His Life.  We did the procession as well. The Bishop carried the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance out of the church and we all processed around the block singing the hymn above. I like that hymn. Those are only two verses I chose to share - the first and the fourth. That part about our senses not seeing any change but our faith learning the lesson - good stuff. He spoke about the symbolism of how we receive Christ into ourselves in the church and take Him out into the world - also good stuff. Labels: church, liturgy, sacraments :::
:::
permalink ::: e-mail me ::: June 11, 2009 >> 10:42 PM a little merton pilgrimage Thanks to Jim Martin, S.J. from America Magazine for this little short pilgrimage to a Merton site - 35 Perry St. in New York, where he lived while attending Columbia University. Pretty cool - just thought I'd share. Labels: merton :::
:::
permalink ::: e-mail me :::
|
daily prayer |::
ordinary time
lectionary readings |::
> today
my blog post labels |::
blogging archives |::
|
|||||
033
