Sound Bite: Meskimen's Mom (Abundance)

I invite you to read a terrific essay by my internet friend, Jim Meskimen. It contains great insight into a proper view of how to deal with the things in our lives. Unlike much of the excess in success preaching we hear from many of our most popular megachurch pastors, this essay tells of an abundant life sung in harmony with Solomonic Wisdom...a life of sharing. You may remember Jim's Mom as "Mrs. C" (Marion Ross) from The TV series Happy Days. Jim is a creative genius....impressionist, artist, actor, comedian, cartoonist, writer... and a wise man. Enjoy the essay: Abundance <-click here.

A Teaser Quote: "So, a world of abundance may not seem like the world you currently live it. But I have seen my mother pull things out of the hat that no hat could possibly contain, and not once but many, many times. And as her many close friends know, she happily shares all that she has yanked out of the void and into this physical plane."









Jim Ross Meskimen

The Best News to Ever Grace Human Ears

Pardon my link to another page. But Dan Edelen is one of the better writers I've read in any medium. Here he gives one of the better presentations of the Best News to Ever Grace Human Ears. If you are already a believer, it is a great reminder of our "birthright". If you are not a follower of Christ, Dan can help you start your journey in faith. Why would anyone refuse such an incredible gift? Gift? Yes. What's in the box? Freedom. Meaning. Hope. Forgiveness. Realtionship(s). Home. Community. Fulfillment. Perspective. Explanations. Coping and Overcoming Skills. Truth. A Place to Plug in and Serve Others. Purpose. Love. Joy. Two Way Conversations with your Creator. Eternal, yes, ETERNAL Life. Life NOW.

How to Become a Christian, by Dan Edelen <- click here

I, too, would be happy to have a conversation with you about what you are looking for.
As Jesus said, "First, eagerly look for God to have His Place and His Goodness in your life, then all these other things shall be added on." Matthew 6:33 (my paraphrase)

You can email me @ Retrevni@Gmail.com

Africa - Perpetuum Jazzile

Terrific Choral Work!

God's Name and Michael Jackson

Perplexed? Stumped? Out foxed by a tiny yellow canary, or maybe beat up by a baby kangaroo? What are you going to say? How about, "Sufferin' Succotash!" So sputtered Sylvester, one of the many memorable cartoon characters of my childhood. Unlike the profanity driven cable cartoons of our day, the makers of the classics used euphemisms for curse words.

Little did I know when I was a child that Sylvester the Cat's "Sufferin' Succotash!" was actually a innocuous way to say "Suffering Saviour!", as someone might use our Cross-riden Lord as a epithet. Spanish speakers insert the word "maldición" when the stronger curse word would be too bold in context. Much like when we say "Gee" or "Golly" we are actually using a "maldición" for God.

Watered down curse words may have a place in this world...but I think they are a bit hypocritical. Just because they are socially acceptable, does not change the intent of the fountain source - one's heart.

Not taking God's name in vain is part of the first triad of commandments, all having to do with how we relate to God directly. We are not to worship or even tip our hat to other gods, we are not to worship their symbols (idols), we are not to take God's Name (person) lightly. If we had never invented euphemisms, maybe we would be more thoughtful about what's in our hearts. If we had to say the real word maybe we would seek the heart help we really need rather than excusing and tolerating the source of the volcanic eruptions. Most people would concur with the need for compliance with the rest of the commandments for a civilized world to even continue to exist. But the first three commands seem to have been similarly euphemised, if even remembered. Beware. They are first on purpose!

Taking God's name in vain is not just saying his name casually (without worshipful respect) or in the heat of anger. It is using it in substitution for that of another god. Idolatry, Cursing and usurping God's primacy in all things are all symptomatic of the same disease. By now you are asking, "What in the world does this have to do with Michael Jackson?" Simply put, for all the god-talk that went on at his memorial, Michael, and many of those in his entourage, at best, had a muddled view of and relationship with...God. This is first seen in who we think God is...His Name.

Tim Challies has a strong counterpoint to the Michael Jackson media frenzy ->here. The photo above, "Together As One", is a snapshot on Tim's site taken from the MJ Memorial Service. Because the words chosen by Michael and his producers for the backdrop are so close to the theme of this blog, I thought it was a good idea that it be forthrightly addressed.

Snippets/Songs from the service were obviously taken from the "THIS IS IT" concerts that MJ was getting ready for London. What was Michael trying to convey with the various symbols of the World's Religions sprinkled throughout His songs? Could the "king" of Pop have been presenting himself and his musical philosophies as the ultimate unifying force in the world. Music is a marvelous unifier and communicator. But it is only a medium for ideas and emotion, not a message within itself...at least that is the idea underpinning the Contemporary Christian Music movement.

Michael Jackson's vision of a succotash stew of the World's religions mingled God's name with all the idolatrous religions of the world (including the one we euphemistically call entertainment "idols"). This man who was so "supremely" talented, was also a serious addict...to drugs, to spending money, to being liked and adored. But even as we feel sorry for him, his children and families loss, we must let the God, whose word rightly divides the truth, address the issues that brought MJ down. He dabbled in various religions throughout his adult life, and in a misguided attempt to tear down the barriers that separate mankind, he decided to blurr the very distinctions of God. God's name...euphemised, compromised, plagiarized. That was the greatest folly of Michael's folly filled life. Had he relied on the Only One Almighty God for his strength he could have been rescued from his own addictions. He had the power to draw the attention of the masses...if only he had raised the cross alone...


Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11 NIV

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. James 1:26 NIV

Un-Euphemistically a "fan" of the Suffering Savior, prophet

The Treasure Chest

Heaven.

There.

You kneel before the Pure Light of God, who created and attends to the boundless universe; in this moment the Almighty One from Eternity is focusing His attention solely on you. You see light as you have never seen light before...it no longer blinds...it only reveals...as if reality has taken on a dozen new dimensions. As you gaze on the glorious visage of His Son, the one who created the opportunity for the rebirth of human souls, you are further humbled, awed, transfixed with wonder. "My beloved child, enter into the home I have prepared for you from day one," He says. "But first, you have something to open."

Mighty Angels strain as they carry an ornately adorned chest and set it before you. It has a your name etched over a golden heart on it's cover. You are puzzled by this elegant box, because you can't think of anything that you ever did that might be befitting of such a gift. You have already been blessed beyond comprehension by awakening in this glorious place..a place that you had so poorly imagined with your feeble sin-bent earthly mind. You have bathed in the warm, comforting radiance of the Maker of a billion suns and His only Son. What more would one want? Nothing, you know for the first time...nothing hurts, nothing hungers, nothing hates. No wants. Complete. This is the end of all you ever thought life needed. And the starting place.

You barely remember being a sickly little girl...who never knew her earthly father; never got noticed in school....by teachers or peers; never was popular or had popular friends; had bad scarring acne; got pregnant by a boy who never gave you another look; had to live at your mother's with your child until you were a grown woman. Yes, you remember working very hard in your short earthly life, but not caring about things so much. That was good, because it opted you from what you saw in others like you, that sense of personal inadequacy and need.

That way of looking at things came shortly before you had your precious son, Barnabas. You went to talk to a counselor at school who was a sweet loving lady who told you that you were forgiven and loved and had a future in spite of your sense that life was over before it had even begun. You asked her how she could be so positive about your situation...that was a dangerous question.

She led you to the Love and the Light.

Life after that was harder, at least that's what others may have thought. But life is not about money when you have none, you think. Nor is it about fancy clothes, cars, glittery gadgets, prestige or how many parties you've crashed. Every day walking in God's presence was better that all the perishable things that everyone else seemed to chase in circles. So every day after Mrs. Holt helped you was spent sharing the Love you had been given. Life passed so fast, you are still reeling from it's fleeting brevity. But you tried to make it count. You heard that Jesus gave love freely. You gave that love, too. You heard that God forgives. You forgave. You heard that living true to God's Words gave Him joy, you obeyed...and sought His forgiveness and help when you failed.

Jesus says, "Thank you for bringing these gifts to glory"

Ah, yes, as your still awe reeling mind comes to focus, you realize that this chest is not God's gift to you, it contains your gifts back to Him. You reflect. "My heart treasure was transferred here from the day I took your gift as my own...there. I praised you there with my squeaky voice and wobbly arms. I praised you there with a life of sacrifice; I praise you here with what I sent to the chest."

You rise and open the lid to the chest. Within it are images of a life lived in worship, service, love...shimmering visages of those with whom you shared your hope. You raise your arms, and, as if conducting an orchestra, you lift the holy iridescent images like smoke up to the Father and the Son. A broken, struggling and frail life lived, now the incense of worship. "For You, My Lord and My God. My Thanks. My Adoration, Forever. " As you continue to waft your treasure of worship up to your God, it's as if a curtain has been drawn back, and you now see a sea of people, like you, also lifting their heavenly treasures up in Worship to their Holy God. You think, "If a rainbow had a voice, it would be the praises of heaven."

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Jesus our Christ.

That we all would have many treasures for worship, there. - prophet

** When I found the art for this entry I was taken back at how it creatively communicated what I had written. "Forgotten Treasure Chest", permission granted to use artwork by artist, Eleonora Manapova. Eleonora wrote: "I've read the story and I think that [the] artwork fits very well!" Artwork available here: http://fineartamerica.com/featured/forgotten-treasure-chest-eleonora-manapova.html

Happy Interdependence Day! (A Rerun)

As we celebrate Independence Day, remember that our independence is only possible because of how well our country has expressed the interdependence of it's citizenship! I could burst into a sermonic diatribe about how Christ's Church is (should be?) the ultimate expression of this design, but I'd rather you simply linger long enough to ponder the following old told story.

Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk . You were shot down!""How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb."I packed your parachute," the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers.

I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor." Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory -- he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason. As you go through this week, this month, this year, be sure and notice and express your appreciation to the people who pack your parachutes.

Happy Birthday America!

Taking on the Weight

I sporadically (true to my ADD tendencies) follow blogs of writers that I find Honest, Wise and Succinct. Julie is a prime example. Here are links to two extra good entries from June 09:

Bearing Burdens

Love

...and two quotes from her Lone Prairie blog:

The first a quote of a quote:

"How I live a moment is how I live a day is how I live a life, the writer Philip Yancey said."

The second very Solomonic:

"Loving as if you’ve never been hurt is a shallow love, indeed. It’s a love that never learned the truth. Love, instead, as if you’ve been crushed. Love anyway."

The Rewards of Loyalty (Ms. Rachael's "Hot" Car)

Original Post (with fun comments) here: http://growingbolder.com/media/technology/vehicles/romancing-the-road-259598.html

The Old Fisherman

Our house was directly across the street from the clinic entrance of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore We lived downstairs and rented the upstairs rooms to out-patients at the Clinic. One summer evening as I was preparing supper, there was a knock at the door I opened it to see a truly awful looking man. 'Why, he's hardly taller than my eight-year-old, ' I thought as I stared at the stooped, shriveled body. But the appalling thing was his face, lopsided from swelling, red and raw Yet his voice was pleasant as he said, 'Good evening. I've come to see if you've a room for just one night. I came for a treatment this morning from the eastern shore, and there's no bus 'till morning.' He told me he'd been hunting for a room since noon but with no success; no one seemed to have a room. 'I guess it's my face. I know it looks terrible, but my doctor says with a few more treatments.. ..' For a moment I hesitated, but his next words convinced me: 'I could sleep in this rocking chair on the porch. My bus leaves early in the morning.' I told him we would find him a bed, but to rest on the porch. I went inside and finished getting supper.

When we were ready, I asked the old man if he would join us. ' No thank you . I have plenty' And he held up a brown paper bag. When I had finished the dishes, I went out on the porch to talk with him a few minutes. It didn't take a long time to see that this old man had an oversized heart crowded into that tiny body. He told me he fished for a living to support his daughter, her five children and her husband, who was hopelessly crippled from a back injury. He didn't tell it by way of complaint; in fact, every other sentence was prefaced with thanks to God for a blessing He was grateful that no pain accompanied his disease, which was apparently a form of skin cancer. He thanked God for giving him the strength to keep going. At bedtime, we put a camp cot in the children's room for him..

When I got up in the morning, the bed linens were neatly folded, and the little man was out on the porch. He refused breakfast, but just before he left for his bus, haltingly, as if asking a great favor, he said, 'Could I please come back and stay the next time I have a treatment? I won't put you out a bit. I can sleep fine in a chair.' He paused a moment and then added, 'Your children made me feel at home. Grownups are bothered by my face, but children don't seem to mind.' I told him he was welcome to come again.

And on his next trip he arrived a little after seven in the morning. As a gift, he brought a big fish and a quart of the largest oysters I had ever seen. He said he had shucked them that morning before he left so that they'd be nice and fresh. I knew his bus left at 4 a.m. , and I wondered what time he had to get up in order to do this for us. In the years he came to stay overnight with us there was never a time that he did not bring us fish or oysters or vegetables from his garden. Other times we received packages in the mail, always by special delivery; fish and oysters packed in a box of fresh young spinach or kale, every leaf carefully washed. Knowing that he must walk three miles to mail these and knowing how little money he had made the gifts doubly precious. When I received these little remembrances, I often thought of a comment our next-door neighbor made after he left that first morning . 'Did you keep that awful looking man last night? I turned him away! You can lose roomers by putting up such people!' Maybe we did lose roomers once or twice But, oh! If only they could have known him, perhaps their illness would have been easier to bear.

I know our family always will be grateful to have known him; from him we learned what it was to accept the bad without complaint and the good with gratitude to God. Recently I was visiting a friend who has a greenhouse. As she showed me her flowers, we came to the most beautiful one of all, a golden chrysanthemum, bursting with blooms. But to my great surprise, it was growing in an old dented, rusty bucket. I thought to myself, 'If this were my plant, I'd put it in the loveliest container I had!' My friend changed my mind. 'I ran short of pots,' she explained, 'and knowing how beautiful this one would be, I thought it wouldn't mind starting out in this old pail. It's just for a little while, till I can put it out in the garden.' She must have wondered why I laughed so delightedly, but I was imagining just such a scene in heaven. There's an especially beautiful one,' God might have said when he came to the soul of the sweet old fisherman. 'He won't mind starting in this small body.' All this happened long ago -- and now, in God's garden, how tall this lovely soul must stand. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.'

Passed on to me from my friend Chris A.


Story by Mary Bartels Bray reprinted from Guideposts, June 1965

The Very First Cannon Ball Baptist?

Memorialized here just in case this is the beginning of a new wave in "Bombastic Immersive Theology"? I can just read it now, "You've not truly been baptized until you've Jumped In all the Way!" or "The bigger the splash the holier thou art." This could even lead to a new category at the next Summer Olympics: "Competition Baptizing." Or, this may be a new form of ecumenicalism; in which the whole choir gets a good old fashioned Mass Methodist Sprinkling.