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“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

“You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart — your stories, visions, memories, visions and songs. Your truth, your version of things, your own voice. That is really all you have to offer us. And that’s also why you were born.”
Anne Lamott

Fickles

George 0 Comments

Fanny’s friend, Frieda, is a frantic type. Always nervous. Flighty would be the word for her.

Frieda went shopping at Kroger recently. Having finished her shopping and checked out, she headed to the parking lot. Always alert and watchful she noticed a man following behind her. No matter which direction she took, he was behind her.

Not the shy type, Frieda wheeled around and confronted the man.

“Are you following me?”, she demanded!

To which he replied, “Yes madam. I’m bringing your groceries to your car.”

It’s Been a While

George 0 Comments

I have been in a blog fog for sometime. I’m not sure what the problem is. I have several things on my mind that I keep planning to post and somehow never get around to it. At any rate, I’m making an attempt to day.

One of my favorite cartoons is Pickles. The characters are often too close to my own experiences. I am considering starting to post some of the adventures of Fred and Fanny in a small, central Kentucky town. You can look forward (?) to FICKLES coming soon.

I have mentioned before the sermon series from the life of Joseph being presented by Pastor Steve Elliott at First Alliance church. I think, for me, this has been one of the best series I have had the opportunity to hear. I would encourage anyone to take the time and listen to them. You can access the audio their website.

Here are few random quotes from my notes of Steve’s lessons. (Not all are original to Steve but were cited in his lessons)

“Self pity is a grave from which there is no ressurrection.”

“May your future contain all the promise and all the joy this moment once held.”

“A divine reminder: if you wrestle with God, you will not win and you will walk with a limp ever after.”

“You can have a life full of dramatic encounters with God and still not have a life full of God.”

“Change always involves loss.”

“A guilty conscience is always suspicious of Grace.”

“When you trust people to deliver what only God can deliver, we become bitter.”

November 1?

George 0 Comments


The year is flying by. It won’t be long until we make our way to Florida for a few weeks. We plan to leave Dec 26 and return the first of February.  I’m looking forward to some fishing and relaxation. During February, we plan to spend some time with Scott and Allison after the twins are born. I am excited about two new grandsons.

The cooler (colder?) weather is impeding my project work in the unheated carriage house. I am close to completing a cradle for the twins and expect there will be enough warmer days to get it finished.

Pastor Steve shared this quote today which stuck with me, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”

Lighting Your Own Way

George 0 Comments

The temptation to find my own way has always been and remains a challenge in my spiritual journey. I was reminded this past week of Isaiah’s words regarding lighting our own path.

Let him who walks in the dark,
who has no light,
trust in the name of the LORD
and rely on his God.

But now, all you who light fires
and provide yourselves with flaming torches,
go, walk in the light of your fires
and of the torches you have set ablaze.
This is what you shall receive from my hand:
You will lie down in torment. (50:10-11)

Thinking about Thinking

George

In my previous post entitled “Thinking About God”, I cited A. W. Tozer’s statement: “The most important thing about us is what comes into our mind when we think about God”. I am convinced of the validity of Tozer’s statement but it begs a number of questions. One question that I have been considering is how do I think about God? Or to put it another way, what is my worldview through which I interpret God? In Frost and Hearst’s reJesus, they briefly examine the implicatons of worldview on our understanding of Scripture and ultimately God. Consider the following:

Much of what gets in the way of a true and life-altering encounter with Jesus can be traced to the problem of worldview. … This is because worldview is effectively the lens through which we engage and thus interpret the world. This issue of worldview plays itself out rather strangely in the Western spiritual and theological tradition when it comes to the understanding of knowledge, or apprehension, of God. The Western church is largely influenced by the more speculative and philosophical worldview ushered in by the Hellenistic world. The problem is that our Scriptures are formed by a significantly different way of seeing things – the Hebraic. We addressed this at length in The Shaping of Things to Come, which surprised some readers. Why introduce Hebraic thinking into a book on the missional church? For us, though, it goes to the heart of why the Western church has moved so far off course. The church is operating out of a Hellenistic worldview that makes it difficult to appropriate all that the New Testament is saying. If this is the case in the area of ecclesiology, it is all the more important in the study of Christology.

To try to get to the essential difference between Hellenistic and Hebraic worldview, some writers have called Greek thinking step logic and Hebraic thinking block logic The Hellenists used a tightly contained step logic whereby one would argue from premise to conclusion; each step in the process is linked tightly to the next in a coherent, rational, linear fashion. “The conclusion, however, was usually limited to one point of view – the human being’s perception of reality'” In contrast, Hebraic thinking tended to express concepts in self-contained units, or blocks, of thought. The blocks did not necessarily fit together in an obviously linear or harmonious pattern, particularly when one block represented a human perspective on truth and another the divine. “This way of thinking created a propensity for paradox, antinomy, or apparent contradiction, as one block stood in tension-and often illogical relation-to the other. Hence, polarity of thought or dialectic often characterized block thinking”. This creates problems for us, trained as we are in Hellenistic approach to thinking, when we try to grasp Scripture. In reading the Bible, in recalibrating, we need to “undergo a kind or intellectual conversion” from the Hellenistic to the Hebraic mind.