bread&tea

Does this sound good? "Working to reach out to the community." A simple statement, not meant to be a trick question. A group that is working to reach out, is a good thing. I was thinking about the idea, what ways to reach out are and the implications of it all. Here are some thoughts. Reaching, or reaching out, doesn't really denote much movement. Reaching implies moving something like an arm, to grab something nearby. Opening the extended hand to take something without a lot of effort. What seems to be more important, is what it does not signify, movement of the body. Now, in reference to a group effort, like a club that meets in a building, reaching applies fairly well. A base of operations can only be reached out from, or people sent out from. The true church though.... the true church is often referred to as the body of Christ, and that is not a stationary base . We have no reason to reach. Not no reason to reach for others, no reason to use the method of reach

Heads up. This is going to sound odd, because I'm arguing for evolutionists today. Yep. Of course in the end, I own a completely different set of beliefs and evolution crumbles anyway, so no surprise there I guess. It all started with thinking about animal rights, yeah... see here's how it goes: humans have rights, we're no different than animals, so animals should have the same rights as humans. I have a problem with that. Forthwith is my attempt at discussion about animal rights from an evolutionary point of view. Would love comments on how it turns out. Seems to me, that the very fact that humans control animals could be seen as evidence for evolution. Why give animals rights, when we are clearly more highly developed? They shouldn't even have survived when we as humans surpassed them. A good many of them didn't. Humans now give animals the right to exist as a species. That isn't individual rights, but it's better than the alternative of total extinct

I have the privilege to be able to help with a program for kids called AWANA. Those letters stand for, "Approved Workmen Are Not Ashamed", which comes from 2 Timothy 2:15, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." AWANA is held on Wednesday nights, and tonight I was working with a kid on scripture memorization. We had come to a section in his club book where he needed to explain to me what it meant to trust Christ. At this point he proceeded to tell me, in a kids way, what that meant. "Oh, yeah! We need to, uh, believe in him, and, and to love him." So good. :-) Yeah, he was a young boy. One of the ninety percent with short attention spans, and an extremely flittery, (new word?) or maybe you'd say antsy temperament. So, part of his answer was probably just default response. You know how the saying goes, Jesus is the right answer half of the tim

This is a short story I wrote, which I suggest reading to the song, "Hufupukar", by Sigur Ros, if you have it. Enjoy! Good Memories/The Hufupukar Moment It’s the middle of the afternoon. Through the chill, fall wind, pushes a large pick-up truck, towing a mighty trailer. The cargo is a cabin, dismantled into beams and rafters. They are carefully stacked, but simply by the sheer amount that are visible, it is hard to tell. The middle of the afternoon, the day not over, and yet the riders of the truck are tired, thoughts either absent from their minds, or kept to themselves. Music is soothing their nerves, it is Hufupukar, by Sigur Ros. It starts then. First the sun breaks through the low-hanging blanket of gray stratus clouds, illuminating with a soft, yellow light. The view is breathtaking as the riders look on with happy, satisfied faces. They are nearing home. As the truck crests the next hill, the music swells and the faces change to delight. Down in the valley lies a

Civilian vehicles, as in minivans and four-door gigs, look pretty high-tech and polished these days. Matter of fact, I guess that applies to most cars now. Last week I happened to have a good long look underneath my van. An event that is almost always due to unfortunate circumstances, which I suspect applies to most under-the-vehicle excursions. Long story short, the whole thing didn't look quite so high tech and polished from down under. More like a bunch of hulking metal chunks welded together. (which it was, now that I think about it) Still, it was complex, intelligent, designed for a purpose, and built to be used. Consider the walls of a house, not from the outside, but from inside, between the sheets of drywall. Dirt, insulation, dead things. Yet the two by fours are positioned sixteen inches (I think?) apart, with multiple screws in them, and attached securely to the roof and floor. Altogether forming a complex, intelligent, purposely designed structure, built to be used.

It's interesting. Ideally, what you read here becomes beneficial to you somehow. This is my goal when I write, that the written word will spark thought in your mind, that other things don't always achieve. Thought that is transferred into action. It's interesting, that despite my efforts to concentrate an benefiting readers, most posts end up also benefiting myself. Not just because of the obvious reward of thinking through a topic for myself before writing it, and the physical act of writing itself. Here's the confession, subconsciously or not, there's usually a writing goal in mind. Meaning, different styles of presentation. (introduction, article, conversational, etc) This helps me get better at writing. And what's interesting, finally, is that it's just as beneficial for you, as it is for me. The task of finding different ways of presentation, and the subsequent act of receiving said writing differently, changes the end result. Of course, although

Sometimes life gets especially hectic, and a blog post seems un-doable. Sometimes the internet refuses to cooperate for several days in a row, and blogging really is un-doable. Sometimes I would have to say that neither of those were problems, and I just simply didn't blog. Whereupon an apology would be appropriate. Although there have been long, looonnng, breaks before, I've been feeling somewhat more convicted to write more often. Thus, I'm sorry there hasn't been anything to read for this last week or so. At this point, I don't know if that conviction is out of a need to write things for others, or for some other reason, so take that apology, um, however you want to I suppose. As it turns out, life has been much more hectic than usual this last week or so, and the internet has been down too. But wouldn't have saying that first sounded evasive? Uncaring? Distant? Like an excuse? I am to prideful. It's not hard to admit. Many areas of my pride are