Everyone is in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars

guitarplayer4jc · 02-23-2003, 01:27 PM

Interesting. If you replace What's So Amazing About Grace? with The Bible Jesus Read, I've read those Yancey books in the same order as you. I just started Soul Survivor last night. So far, so good.

What other authors do you like?

psalm63adam · 02-23-2003, 01:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by guitarplayer4jc
What other authors do you like?

Mark Buchanan wrote a great book called Your God Is Too Safe, and I just got his book A Sight Unseen. I like his writing style.

Anything by Brennan Manning.

Devotional-wise, I'm a big Henri Nouwen fan.

Mike Yaconelli is a youth ministry guy who wrote a couple of great books - Dangerous Wonder and Messy Spirituality.

I also like Leonard Sweet's take on what's going to happen in the future - SoulTsunami, AquaChurch, and SoulSalsa are all great books - plus they've got all kinds of stuff all over the pages - great for the ADD types!

I also like Bill Hybels stuff on church and leadership.

What authors do you like? Any to recommend?

psalm63adam · 02-23-2003, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by guitarplayer4jc
Interesting. If you replace What's So Amazing About Grace? with The Bible Jesus Read, I've read those Yancey books in the same order as you. I just started Soul Survivor last night. So far, so good.

The Bible Jesus Read was a good book - had a lot of good insight. And I also read Reaching For The Invisible God, which wasn't as good as most of Yancey's other works. And I have a couple of his short story collections - I Was Just Wondering and another whose name escapes me.

Soul Survivor is great - good biography on people I didn't know much about, like Annie Dillard, etc.

guitarplayer4jc · 02-24-2003, 05:35 PM

Quote:

Mark Buchanan wrote a great book called Your God Is Too Safe

I've read that book. It's been a while though; I should read it again. I remember it being pretty good. He has a nice writing style.

Quote:

What authors do you like? Any to recommend?

My favorites are Philip Yancey and C. S. Lewis. I used to like John Ortberg a lot, but I haven't read any of his stuff in a while. Josh McDowell is pretty good as far as apologetics go. You should definitely read Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance by Donald Miller. Excellent book! I really don't have as much time to read as I would like. School work keeps me pretty busy. This summer I am going to spend more time reading.

Quote:

And I also read Reaching For The Invisible God, which wasn't as good as most of Yancey's other works.

I like that book.

psalm63adam · 02-24-2003, 05:54 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by guitarplayer4jc
I used to like John Ortberg a lot, but I haven't read any of his stuff in a while.

I like Ortberg's stuff, especially The Life You've Always Wanted.

psalm63adam · 02-26-2003, 08:57 AM

RANT - Week of 2/23/03

There should be pet weddings.

No, that's not what I mean. I think they already have weddings between pets on the Animal Planet channel, right before "The Planet's Funniest Animals" and right after "Pet Detective". Or maybe they don't have that yet. No matter.

What I mean is that there should be an official ceremony between pets and owners that link them together for the rest of their lives.

Why am I ranting about this?

Well, my wife is pregnant. And a lot of people have asked us questions about what is going to happen when the baby is born. Questions like, "What color are you going to paint the baby room?"; "Are you going to breast feed or bottle feed?" (usually, I turn away from a conversation if that question is asked, clear my throat, and try to find something else to do, like pick up a scorpion, or play with knives or ANYTHING ELSE BUT ANSWER THAT QUESTION!)

Or this question: "Well, are you going to give your cat up when the baby is born?"

What? Quoi? (insert other language term of the question what here)?

"Well, yeah, a lot of times cats don't do well with babies. They may try to smother the baby trying to get warm. Or I've heard of cats that are so mad at the baby that they pee in the crib."

Umm, hey dorkwad. It's called, "close your baby room door so the cat can't get in, okay?"

I'm not giving up my cat for anything. He's been with us for six years, and he is a part of our family , no questions asked. You see, I'm not one of those people who love and take care of a pet only if it's convenient, or as long as it's not a bother, or unless it screws up. No way, Jose.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who do just that. That's why the pounds are full of cats and dogs. That's why millions and millions of unwanted pets every year are euthanized. Because people get pets because they're supposed to. Or because their kid wants one, and then ends up torturing the pet so that it's mean. Of course it's the pet's fault, so the pet goes back to the pound.

So I'm offering a solution. Let's institute a "marriage" ceremony of sorts. Let's say our vows, that we will love our pets - in sickness and health, when they behave and when they don't, when it's convenient and when it's not, when we move to a new state and when we don't (I have never understood this reasoning of taking a pet to the pound - because you're moving. So? All your crappy furniture is going with you.), till death do us part, Amen.

Are dogs going to heaven? Nope. Do cats get to go with us to those pearly gates? Probably not.

But that doesn't mean that we can't make it heaven on earth for our pets by taking care of them, and loving them in the same way that they so unconditionally love us.

Just make sure the wedding rings are non-chewable.

SoccerAaron · 02-26-2003, 06:50 PM

Why didn't you just get a name change?

psalm63adam · 02-27-2003, 08:56 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SoccerAaron
Why didn't you just get a name change?

1. I tried to change my name before, but it never happened. The administrator or moderator who was supposed to never did.

2. I wanted a fresh new start, to be a kinder, gentler person.

3. I'm wanted as imclayinaz in five states. Just kidding.

psalm63adam · 02-27-2003, 11:57 AM

RAVE - week of 2/23

Well, like most former children, I'm saddened by the news that Mister Rogers died of cancer at age 74.

I'm sure you know who Mister Rogers is. Who doesn't? He was the guy who you loved to watch as a kid. The guy who taught you to share your toys with other kids, who took you to the land of Make Believe, who made you afraid of trolleys. Okay, that last part was just me.

In tribute to Mister Rogers, I am going to post part of an interview that he did with The Door Magazine several years ago. I'm sure that some of it will be surprising to you; after all, a lot of people didn't know that Mister Rogers was an ordained minister. As you read this interview, listen to the passion of Mister Rogers for what God has called him to do.

THE DOOR INTERVIEW - MISTER ROGERS

In his office at station WQED, we met the nicest man in the world. (He was reading the Door when we walked in.) Mr. Rogers asked us about our kids, gave us autographed pictures, books and records for them, and acted like the only thing he had to do all day was talk to us. He treated us like we were the most important people in the world, just like he does every afternoon on TV. But behind the soft-spoken nice guy looms a sharp thinker who has a reason for everything he does on the air. Fred - who is now 61, has been married for 36 years, and has two adult sons, one of whom has made him a grandfather - shared these thoughts with us.

DOOR: Why have you devoted your life to helping kids? Did you feel a "call" to work with them through the media of TV?

ROGERS: I don't know whether any of us really knows the genesis of our work identity completely. I'm convinced that it starts very, very young and that it's involved in our own needs. But I was planning on going to seminary right after college. This was in 1951. And on Easter vacation, I just sat down and looked at television. I'd already been accepted at Western Seminary, but as I looked at television, I thought it was so lamentable that I said to my family, "You know, I think maybe instead of going to seminary this year, I'll go to New York and work in television."

DOOR: So you decided to go into children's TV full time?

ROGERS: It was more a kind of leading, I believe. Who would have thought that such a tiny seed would grow into such an immense plant and be able to be used by somebody?

DOOR: Everything was live and unrehearsed on the original program?

ROGERS: Very live. It was superb training for later when I would have to write the Neighborhoods. But that went on for about seven or eight years. And all during that time I was going to seminary. After a year of working at QED, I decided to take a long lunch hour and take courses. I started with systematic theology and at night I studied Hebrew. And so it went. I don't know when I ever expected to graduate. But I did graduate and was ordained with a very special kind of ordination - to work with families through mass media.

DOOR: What's your strategy at the start of the program? Is there a reason behind everything you do - like putting on your sweater and tennis shoes?

ROGERS: It's a kind of transition from work clothes that says, "We're going to have a comfortable time together." This is my intent. I don't know why at the very beginning I did that. But as I analyze it, I think that's what happened. That sets the tone.

I think of the program as having different parts. The opening is the stuff that dreams are made of. We usually bring something in each day - a recorder or a telephone or a book - and I help the kids to understand the reality of these things. And yet these things invariably turn up in the neighborhood of make-believe in a part of the play. And I use "play" in a large sense of the word. We really try to encourage imaginative play.

DOOR: Do you have a lot of contact with people who watch your program?

ROGERS: We do. It happens mostly by mail. But there are people of all ages who write to us. There's a woman in Corvallis, Oregon, who writes once a week. She's seventy-eight years old. There's a woman in Chicago who writes every month. And that's one reason why I like to do some work for older people. Grandparents and people of the grandparent generation are so important to kids. And I think kids are important to them.

DOOR: Why is a seventy-eight-year-old attracted to your program?

ROGERS: I think that she feels needed in the kind of thing that we're doing. The first time she wrote to us, she was telling about herself and her days as a teacher. When we responded, we were encouraging to her and supportive of who she was and who she had been and who she continued to be. People long to be needed. And they long to be respected. And this is what I hope comes through in the Neighborhood. I end the program in some form or another with, "You make this day a special day by just being you. There's only one person in the whole world like you. And I like you just the way you are."

Well, there's more in that interview, but I think that you can see the heart and passion that burned within Fred Rogers' soul. And my prayer is that each one of us would embrace our own calling in the same way that Mister Rogers embraced his.

Nathanael · 02-27-2003, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by parkway
Well, there's more in that interview, but I think that you can see the heart and passion that burned within Fred Rogers' soul. And my prayer is that each one of us would embrace our own calling in the same way that Mister Rogers embraced his.

Well done parkway