Sweet Spots
Ideas and messages from Len Sweet.
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Dry As Toast
Dry as Toast Story Lectionary 10 July 2016 The Story of Noah (Genesis 8) The Hand of Jeroboam is Shriveled and Powerless in the Face of the Lord’s Prophet (1 Kings 13:4-6) Elijah and the Dry Land of Ahab / Elijah’s Power Over Water (I Kings 17:1-16 and I Kings…
You Have No Neighbor
You Have No Neighbor Lectionary 10 July 2016 8th Sunday After Pentecost Amos 7:7-17 Psalm 82 Colossians 1:1-14 Luke 10:25-37 Text to Life Everyone wants to think they are the “Good Samaritan.” Or at least they COULD BE the good Samaritan if an occasion arose that called for “good sam”-like…
Grief Echoes
I listened to Krista Tippett interviewing Pauline Boss this week. Ms. Boss is a writer and therapist who established a new field of research on grieving when she coined the phrase “ambiguous loss.” She realized that there are many, many types of loss that lack the “closure” we have been taught to desire when dealing with difficult experiences. The lack of closure, but very present experience of loss, she termed “ambiguous loss” – a severing or separation that can’t be easily boxed up or put aside or resolved. For example, the intimate loss that many are going through with loved ones affected by dementia. Relationships are significantly altered by the changes that occur, but the person is still physically present. The textbook case – a person’s expected and natural death in old age – has become the minority report, and what many experience is so much more complex and “ambiguous.” On a larger scale, the almost daily frequency of national and global tragedies influence us deeply, but do not affect us directly. Yet, despite physical or geographic separation, we experience profound emotion. read more…
4 Ways to Recognize a Metaphor
How do you recognize a metaphor? Here are four ways: A metaphor is a noun, such as sun, hand, light, journey, rock. A metaphor has multiple meanings and points to something more conceptual, for example: When I say, Jesus is the rock, I don’t mean literally that He is a rock,…
Pastor’s Prayer for 10 July 2016
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment. Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice. Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
–Prayer of the Psalmist (51)
Lab Girl
Lab Girl
by Hope Jahren
It is difficult to know how to categorize the extraordinary book Lab Girl (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016) by Hope Jahren. It is perhaps best to call it a memoir because it certainly reveals facets of the life of author and scientist, Hope Jahren, from her childhood to the present. It also might be thought of as a science publication due to the specialized information Jahren discloses about the subjects of geochemistry and geobiology, her fields of expertise. Another book classification for consideration might be love and relationships since Lab Girl tells the touching story of the odd, humorous and committed relationship between Jahren and her fellow scientist/team-member, Bill – (no last name is ever given for Bill). Jahren and Bill, because of their idiosyncrasies and lack of social skills, possess the ways but not the words to show their deep regard for one another. All of these areas, and more, are brought together through Jahren’s impressive writing skills, and are organized into three sections in Lab Girl: “Roots and Leaves,” “Wood and Knots,” and “Flowers and Fruit.” read more…
PTS
Earthquakes and Resilience
This article is about earthquake preparedness, but it has some great lines on survival as well. Like this: “Resilience, it seems, isn’t just about what happens after a crisis: It’s about what happens in the months, and years, before it. Eighty percent of a city recovers quickly after a disaster. Twenty percent suffers long term. We don’t just fall down, we—like sinkholes—dry out from within. read more…
Beloved
“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. What did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the Earth.” The inscription from the tombstone of the US poet Raymond Carver (1938-1988) , who is buried at Ocean View Cemetery in…
A Prayer by Thomas Aquinas
Christ, Good Shepherd, bread Divine, show to us your mercy sign. Feed us still, still keep us thine That we may see your glory shine In the kingdom of the good. Source of all we have or know, Come and guide us here below, Make us, at your table…
Tiny and Tremendous
Strip away all of the electronics. Abandon the floodlights and the mosh pit. Get close enough to your audience to see the whites of their eyes. Focus your energy on the simple and the significant. This is how NPR’s Tiny Concerts are formed.
The videos show the musicians crammed amidst the book shelves, desks and paraphernalia of a busy office, but the music is present, connected, and visceral.
When your place the artists in the midst, in the mess, the music takes center stage, but in a totally different way … the relationships have altered. read more…