Stay Busy!

I came across these verses a couple of days ago during my lunchbreak at work ...

"If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done. Be sure to stay busy and plant a variety of crops, for you never know which will grow - perhaps they all will." Ecclesiastes 11:4, 6.

There are a lot of references in the Bible to sowing, planting and reaping. I think that sometimes as Christians we mistake the "waiting on God" thing to mean not to do anything unless there is a clear sign. However there is a clear sign that we should be sowing ... and often! To find a job, partner, end to conflict, ministry takes a lot of sowing into. Even things like reconciliation needs to be planted, watered ect. I like what it says in that verse, "Stay busy." Something thats hard to do when our heart is involved or things are looking impossible.

Just felt like sharing that verse with you all. Have a blessed day!

John the Baptist's .... Hand?

This is just bizarre ... What is it with these Russian newspapers??

Link: Ancient Hand Inspires Talk of Miracles

Ancient Hand Inspires Talk of Miracles

By Anastasiya Lebedev

Thousands of people, many of them old women wearing long skirts and head scarves, shaded themselves with umbrellas as they waited for hours Wednesday to see and kiss a chest containing the purported right hand of John the Baptist.
"It's not every day that they bring something so holy to Moscow," Svetlana Chausova said, standing near the head of the line at 1 p.m. Chausova, 31, and most of her family had been waiting to get into Christ the Savior Cathedral since 6 a.m. Her husband had to give up earlier to go to work ..."

The relic was on display from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. when it first arrived. But the church authorized around-the-clock viewing this week due to the long line.

Several groups of women in line huddled under umbrellas to sing prayers. Nuns in long black habits and priests surrounded by their parishioners waited patiently and spoke of a holy apparition. Father Alexander from Zvenigorod, near Moscow, said that people waiting in line Friday had seen a rainbow halo around the sun and that attempts to photograph it resulted in images of an oil lamp with a blood-red cross over it. Marina, 75, who did not want to give her last name, said she had seen the rainbow and the photographs. She said she had seen another holy apparition in her hometown of Ramenskoye, near Moscow, last month, when a cross appeared in the sky over her church after a religious service.

Alexei Zagalsky, 13, and Timofei Zholninsky, 14, said they had come with their families but had managed to wiggle ahead in line. Zholninsky said praying to the relic would help their future.

"Yeah, when we're dead," Zagalsky quipped, causing his friend to argue that the prayers might help them with their university entrance exams. "All right, it could help us earlier than that," Zagalsky conceded.

The metro station exit leading to the cathedral was lined with panhandlers, apparently counting on the generosity of those going to see the relic. An ice cream vendor frantically handed out cones to perspiring customers.

Fotina, a 45-year-old nun, walked along the line of waiting believers to collect donations for the restoration of the 16th-century Poshekhonsky Convent, 500 kilometers northeast of Moscow in the Yaroslavl region. She said the convent, where she lives, had sent her to Moscow to collect money while the relic was in town.

Raisa, 65, who had been waiting since 6:30 a.m., said she had seen many relics and had been healed by praying to them. She refused to elaborate.

Nikolai, 50, came from the town of Chekhov, near Moscow, to pray for his wife, who was recovering after surgery.

Standing next to him with a violin case, Alla Kharitonova, 27, said she was running between the line and concerts scheduled for the day. She wore jeans but said she had a skirt in her bag to put on once she got inside the church.

Rimma Golubeva, 70, said she had heard that the hand had healed a man this week. She herself planned to pray for God to send a tsar to rule Russia. "Until there is a tsar, Russia won't lift its head," she said.

Sergei Kislitsyn, 27, who got up at 4:30 a.m. to catch a train from the Tver region, emerged from the church with a bewildered smile at 2:30 p.m. "It was like being hit over the head, only spiritually," Kislitsyn said.

He said he had seen other relics but had never had such a powerful experience. Asked what he had prayed for, he said, "To stop smoking. And to be saved, of course."

To be a Christian you have to be a little bit well crazy ...

"If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ's love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do." 2 Corinthians 5: 13-14 The Message

Author John Updike observes that the entire Gospel narratives about Jesus are where "Two worlds collide and Jesus overthrows common sense."

I think Updike really nailed it. In the Gospel, common sense is overthrown. Jesus said the last comes first, the meek and lowly overthrow the rich and powerful. Everything about the Christian faith goes against the grain. In this world, most things that seems right are probably wrong, and most everything that is attested to by social wisdom really misses the point. It is all craziness. It is all foolishness from beginning to end I'd say! From Genesis to Revelation ... But that's what makes it so special. That's why I love being a Christian! This stuff isn't the stuff of ordinary craziness. All these people they were not just any old lunatics. These people were crazy for God and in return God was crazy for them. Sure enough it is all foolishness, but as Paul says it is all God's foolishness. To be a Christian you have to be a little bit well crazy ...

John 3:8, "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Thoughts on a Monday ....

'Dem Bones/Sedlec Ossuary Chapel of All Saints

Ezekiel - Chapter 37:4 Then he said to me, "Speak to these bones and say, `Dry bones, listen to the word of the Lord! 5 This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Look! I am going to breathe into you and make you live again! 6 I will put flesh and muscles on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath into you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.' "


Now for something different I came across ...

Until it was bombed out in World War II, a Christian sanctuary called the Sacra Infirmary Chapel on Malta was decorated entirely with human bones. The three photos below show detail in the Sedlec Ossuary Chapel of All Saints, located in the Czech Republic. It is decorated with the bones of 40,000 saints!

http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/silver_p/kutna-1.html

Now this raises a theological question. If it is believed that those who are "resurrected with Christ" in the last day will rise up with their bodies, then what would one see if one was in one of these chapels at the moment of the Last Trump? Just had to ask ...

Bible Fight

This link has been sitting on my desktop for a few days while I have tried ... and failed ... to come up with some sort of appropriate commentary for it. But words continue to fail me, so I will just let you see for yourself:

Click here: [adult swim] Games Bible Fight

Is this offensive? Funny? Blasphemous? Just plain goofy? Which way does it strike you, and why? Whichever it is, somebody sure spent a lot of time and energy designing it. (And my vote for coolest special move goes to Noah's "Ark Stampede"attack.)

Psalm 61

The writers of the Psalms lived in a world that took the existence of God utterly for granted. The Psalm writers may often lament the absence of this God from their lives, but they never doubt that there is a God who could be present. In our Post Modern world, even those who have taken that leap of faith know that that is what we have done, and many people stand on the brink, wondering how to get across at all.

My workplace in this troubled economic time is a “battlefield” which is teaching me more than I ever could imagine. In trying to keep things in perspective, I continuously tell myself that the negativity and stress there is refining my character. Some days however, my character refuses to be refined! Working in a chaotic environment brings out the worst in everyone, including me.

There are times I realize how deep my resentment runs. I’ve distanced myself from some and have been remote to overworked managers who are trying the best they can. Rancor? I feel it running deeply in my soul; shattering the image I have of myself as a kind, loving Christian. My reluctant prayer is one of thanks to God, for once again reminding me that my place of trial holds the potential for my greatest growth. And, the key to survival is placing my hope in Him alone. He promises He will carry my burdens, today I purpose (again!) that I will let Him.

I share this Psalm with the prayer that it might speak to other people of faith--and doubt-- and enrich their lives and experience of the divine in the day to day.

Have a blessed day everyone!

Psalm 61

A David Psalm 1-2

God, listen to me shout, bend an ear to my prayer.

When I'm far from anywhere,

down to my last gasp,

I call out, "Guide me

up High Rock Mountain!"

3-5 You've always given me breathing room,

a place to get away from it all,

A lifetime pass to your safe-house,

an open invitation as your guest.

You've always taken me seriously, God,

made me welcome among those who know and love you.

6-8 Let the days of the king add up

to years and years of good rule.

Set his throne in the full light of God;

post Steady Love and Good Faith as lookouts,

And I'll be the poet who sings your glory—

and live what I sing every day.

(The Message)

A Mary Magdalene Story

Although we are not anywhere close to the Easter season, here is an interesting story I came across ...

"Easter eggs are not just a tradition of the western church; they are found in Orthodox traditions as well. While eggs can be dyed any color, red is by far the most common, and the reason has to do with a legend told about Saint Mary Magdalene.

To the Orthodox, Mary Magdalene was not the "reformed prostitute" portrayed in the west. Rather, she was an educated noblewoman who helped finance the ministry of Jesus and who, after the resurrection, used her social standing to teach the gospel to upper class people who would never have listened to a mere fisherman. She has the title "Equal of the Apostles" because of her importance to the early church.

The egg story tells of her travelling to Rome after the Ascension and being admitted to the court of Tiberius Caesar. At a dinner party, she told the emperor of the miscarriage of justice done by Pilate, and then about how Jesus rose from the dead. Mary picked up an egg from the dinner table to illustrate the idea of resurrection. Tiberius scoffed at the story, saying that a man could no more rise from the dead than the egg in her hand turn red. The egg immediately turned a bright scarlet."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Magdalene

What a cool story!