bread&tea

Matthew 5:2-12: The Beatitudes And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets before you." After reading something like that, it's hard not to feel at least a little bett

In my probably-not-so-humble opinion, here's some fun and neat quotes. They're just some of my personal favorites. Enjoy, if you will. All anybody expects of adolescents is that they act like adults and are satisfied to be treated like children. A creative advertisement fort a discount store announced a new laundry item called solar-powered clothes dryer. It turned out to be a clothesline. Some things have to be put off time after time before they finally slip your mind. Credit: the system that allows you to live the way you would if you could. It has never been determined whether the early bird enjoys the worm as much as the late bird enjoys the extra sleep. Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk. You know it’s not a good wax museum when there are wicks coming out of people’s heads. Noted psychoanalyst Freud said that the first person that hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. To my mind,

Sometimes it seems snow naturally drifts wherever you precisely don't want it to be. Have you noticed that? There will be this bare section of ground in the middle of the yard, practically begging to have a nice coating of white snow over it. And then, over by whichever door it is that you use often, of course, there's the snow. Piled up again waiting for you to dig it out. It's the same with all the pathways too. Instead of the snow blowing over by the tree or anywhere else, it fills in the trenches with a satisfied feeling, knowing that it's making a beautiful unbroken sheet three feet deep, of course for you to admire. Next morning you step out the back door, observe, and howl bloody murder. Naturally, you can't remain angry to long, (if you really got angry at all) and have to chastise yourself for getting upset about such an unchangeable situation. On especially good days you can even chuckle a little over the whole thing as you gamely reach for the scoop shove

I get the wrong impression from people a lot. I'm not real good at guessing what their trying to say, imply, or whatever. And you know what? I find myself being the same way often, even if I try to be clear. Here's an example: sometimes the enthusiasm we Christians have for our faith is so blatant it seems like nothing must go wrong for us. Yeah, like sometimes I'm talking to someone, and I have to slow myself down and realize that maybe I'm not spouting the whole truth. "Yeah, God gives me such peace, and I trust Him with everything, and God will take care of you no-matter what; and it's so amazing having a personal relationship with my savior. Ask and accept God into your heart and everything will be so much better." True, yes. But that doesn't mean I feel that all the time. Sometimes it just seems that we act like we're in God-mode. "Nothing can stop me now!" "Unlimited power!" "Death can't touch me!&qu

The electrical network has been unstable recently and today. But we do have electricity right now :-) The wires which carry our electricity go into a fusebox and from there into the house. Why is this interesting? Well, I just thought it was like a house's veins and arteries. The electricity flows through the fusebox and goes to all the lights and appliances and whatnot, and then returns back again. We have veins and arteries too. You know that. But as I was contempalating this not-so-important-thought in my daily duties a faint brainspark fizzed. We have spiritual veins and arteries as well. We pray and read the bible! Praying is like an artery, our prayers go out to God. And when we read the bible, it's like a vein bringing Him to us. Or His knowledge anyway. His direction. Furthermore, both our essential to our continued lifestyle. Stop up the vein, and we lose connection, closeness and our relationship with God. Stop up the artery, and we lose direction, ecnouragement and o

Sunday night I was listening to my youth leader, and not paying near enough attention as I should have been. However, beside the lesson, he brought up and we briefly discussed, manipulative Christians. The gist of it, was some of the ways Christians use to persuade others to the faith. One such manipulative method stuck in my head, because I have used it. Hell. I thought it over and talked to people about using hell as a means to convert others. I guess it's our duty to inform others about hell, but what's wrong is when we try to outright scare them. Like, "If you don't accept Christ you'll go to hell and be tormented forever with burning sulfur and smoke will come out of you and it'll really hurt and you'll never die!" That's all true, but it's like bullying someone. Wrong. I mean, do you really think someone came to the faith just because they said a prayer so they wouldn't go to hell? Hell is scary. Hell is downright freaky and horrible.

I don't think I've inspired anyone to start a blog. More likely reading my posts deters others from reading blogs altogether :-) However, I wrote a post about keeping a journal, something I'm not real good at, so I thought, "hey why not write a post about starting a blog too? What with my lack of knowledge on both subjects, I should be able to make this post at least equal to the other." First off, with a blog comes a reasonable amount of commitment. If you're a Christian, the decision of whether or not to start a blog should involve prayer. If you're not a Christian, why not trying a prayer every now and then? You might feel let down, but then again....you might not. A couple of questions should probably be resolved during the above time of decision. Such as: What is my blog going to be about? This would mean whether the blog will be about your life, topics you're interested in, or concerned about, your personal insights, a fan-blog about someone or

Yesterday I wrote this song, or maybe it's a rhyme. Anyway I got kinda excited because it's one of the few I've actually finished. There's plenty of room for editing and polish, but at least it's got an ending. Unfortunately I don't have a name for it yet either. Hence the post title. So hopefully you'll find it interesting and enjoyable. Or at least not cripplingly horrible :) You could maybe accept them, Simply as they really are, Let them in, and, Love them from within, Just go out and bring them in, Ragged, maybe without kin, With their secrets hidden deep, Or some right out on their sleeve, Don't you dare frown, They might bow down, They'll lift their face and see, His majestic beau-ty, They'll shine with a new-found grace, You might struggle to keep pace, Then you'll really realize, You've been blind without your eyes, Then you'll see the reality, Of His total sovereignty, So let's go praise Him now, Don't do it with a c

Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear whomever, happy birthday to you! Even if it is infrequently, everyone needs to know that they matter. That they're special. Like the other song, "whomever you are so special, there is no-one else like you, God has made you special, there is no-one else like you." I love it. God makes us special. He makes me feel special. I don't know how someone could show me I'm special to them in a way more powerful than dying for me. Not only that, and not to diminish that, but God also works on us our entire life, molding our specialism into our unique purpose. There's similar people, twins, triplets or whatever People with the same name, last name, middle name, hair or skin color, and on and on. No matter how similar two people are though, especially at first sight and impression, there's a load of subtleties even in looks, and that's only the directly visible differences. Individual personality and

Here's an excerpt from a biography of Susanna Wesley I've been reading. Dr. Annesley pointed to his newly-constructed compass. "Which way is the needle pointing?" he asked. "North and south." "Correct. Let's see if we can change that." He slowly moved the lodestone around the magnetized needle, as he did so the needle shifted. "Explain that Sukey." "The needle is more attracted to the lodestone than the north pole." "Why?" "Because the lodestone is closer." "Correct! And this is what happens to most of us. We seek God's will for our lives, but even as we seek it our inward compass is deflected by our own desires." Isn't that neat? We seek God, as the compass, but so often our direction is affected by that lodestone that is so much closer, and more appealing right now . Really, it's a question of what do you really want? Sure, you want to serve God, I always want that, but is there

You were awesome! Wow. You know what, that's really something. I've been using and hearing people use the word awesome so much I decided to look it up and find out just what it means. Turns out I had a little fun! I knew that awesome was generally reserved just for God, but not why. Awesome is inspiring awe . Okay, so what's awe? Awe is reverential fear, dread mingled with veneration. And if you dig a little further, awe is an emotion that is inspired by authority, or something sacred or sublime. If you want, you can dig along and find out what all those words mean, if you aren't sure. So we go backwards now. Awe is reverential fear, and awe some is inspiring awe. Awesome means, inspiring reverential fear mingled with dread and veneration. Usually used to describe a feeling when beholding an authority that is sacred and of higher status than we. I can practically collapse with laughter here :) "Hey dude, awesome hair!" "You were awesome!" "Oh,

Does the idea of making New Years resolutions sound a little old by now? Ya man. I'm far to late to jump on the New Years train of "Get in shape now! Yeah! Strong resolutions make a strong you! What will you do this new year? 10 tips for a better year! 100 tips for a better year! New years resolutions for Dummies! How-to and do-it-yourself resolution textbook! NEW NEW NEW! Yeah! Make life better for YOU! We love you! We want to know what you're doing all the time! The world revolves around you, and your resolutions count! And what we really mean is we'll do anything to improve our relationship with you to get your green!" Ah....yeah. Pardon me, I got a little carried away. :) So I wandered around brainstorming ideas for a post on resolutions, and remembered an ad I'd seen earlier. You know it's a good commercial ad when it catches your eye and you remember it. Anyway, it was an electronics ad, running along the lines of, "Our New Years resolutions co