Like an old man
Sitting alone at a lunch counter
Never leave lonely alone...
Like a small town girl
A big city devours
Never leave lonely alone...
Some of us laugh
Even in our darkest hour
Never leave lonely alone...
Unspoken rules of solitude
Wound without a trace
A lifetime of dreams roll down your face
All that we can't say
Is all we need to hear
When you close your eyes
Does the world disappear
There's something in everyone
Only they know
Never leave lonely alone...
It moves in the hidden ways
Of joy and sorrow
Never leave lonely alone
Never leave lonely alone...
-- Never Leave Lonely Alone from "Both Sides of the Gun" by Ben Harper
The stewardship team at Canyon Creek has had the revelation that people who give out of gratitude give much more money much more freely than those who give out of a sense of obligation. <sarcasm>Shocking, isn't it.</sarcasm>
Anyhow, it has become somewhat of a tradition at Canyon Creek that we open stewardship season by sharing our gratitude with each other. The stewardship team puts together a little booklet of writing pieces that members submit, and the booklet goes out to everyone.
Read on for my submission. Those of you that talk with me semi-regularly will recognize the theme.
So as some of you know, I've got a little "spare time" at work these days, and I tend to fill it by digging around the old interweb looking for tidbits of things that interest/amuse me.
I managed to dig up this fantastic quote from Reinhold Niebuhr during my daily wanderings, and I thought it is worth sharing:
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If the ministers of our great urban churches become again the
simple priests and chaplains of this American idolatry, subtly
compounded with a few stray Christian emphases, they will merely
add one more dismal proof in the pages of history that a religiously
sanctified self-idolatry is more grievous than its secular variety.
This is how the gospel becomes a salt that has lost its savor.
The gospel cannot be preached with truth and power if it does
not challenge the pretensions and pride, not only of individuals,
but of nations, cultures, civilizations, economic and political
systems. The good fortune of America and its power place it under
the most grievous temptations to self-adulation. If there is
no power and grace in the Christian church "to bring down
every high thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of
God," the church becomes not merely useless but dangerous.
We Protestants speak critical words about the idolatrous pretensions
of the Roman Church. But some of these pretensions are actually
more plausible than this miserable identification of the "laws
of God" with a particular form of democracy....
Christianity and Society, Spring 1950, in Love and Justice, p. 97.
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More interesting than that, though, is how I managed to end up looking at the quote. It started with my daily visit to YouTube to check out some clips from what I think is the funniest show on television, How I Met Your Mother. As I began searching about I stumbled on this little nugget:
Now, if you aren't a fan of Les Miserables or How I Met Your Mother, I'm sure that was lame, but I thought it was gold. It got me thinking about musicals and I began wandering You Tube in search of clips from what I feel is the best musical I've ever sat through, Wicked. Seriously, it's that good. Check out this clip that I found:
That led me over to my other favorite net repository, Wikipedia.
I was reading about the production of Wicked and I started reading about one of the key actresses in the musical, Kristen Chenoweth, a self-described Liberal Christian. I thought to myself "Hey, I'm a Christian" and "Hey, I'm pretty liberal", so I decided to see what the wikipedia had to say about that. I did some reading and when I got to the section on Liberal Theologians, I was struck by old Reinhold's name. I know I've studied his work before, likely in Stell's class in college, but I couldn't remember a lick about what he had to say, so I clicked over to his page.
From there, I found the quote.
And that kids, is how Reinhold Niebuhr is related to modern television situation comedy.
I thought this little nugget of joy might make you think twice before digging into that plate of Tofurkey for the holidays. Turns out, according to Jim Rutz at World Net Daily, that tofu (or any other soy product) makes you gay:
Have a read, this dude is as serious as a heart attack.
What really gets me about this, beyond the fact that there is finally an explanation for the correlation between the vegetarians and an unexplained love of musical theater, is that I have seen countless blogs use these goons at WnD as a legit source.
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