Thanks to Canada Day, I skipped last week's installation of Friday in the Wild. So this week, I'm posting two weeks' worth of stuff, which really wasn't all that much to begin with. I hope the blog posts haven't gotten too stale!
The Howling Coyote has started his C. S. Lewis reading with Surprised by Joy and so far, he's pretty impressed:
How do we view God when we approach him? I imagine a lot of people, and not just children, view God as a celestial Santa Clause whose only purpose is to be there, on the ready, to be conjured up when we need him most to make some change in our lives which, in our view, will make us happier.
How many times do we approach him "without love, without awe, even without fear"? How often have we expected him to just show up on our bequest, not "as Savior, nor as Judge, but merely as a magician; and when He" has done what we require of Him, we suppose he should "simply - well, go away."
What a tremendous insight into our sinful, selfish thinking about God! It makes me think now when I approach God in prayer, am I approaching him right? It makes me wonder what portrait I am painting of God to my children. How can I convey the proper attitude toward God that they should have - the proper attitude in prayer, in worship, in their thinking, in their relationship with him?
[Read How Do You View God?]
J. Mark Bertrand takes a well-aimed swipe at the purveyors of bland "Christian fiction" in the Christian Booksellers Assocation:
The CBA is not a bastion of great books - or even good ones. More often than not, I pick up a CBA novel only to find it unreadable. All I can think is that the standard for publication is too low. Of course, this isn't true of every CBA title. (Some people reading this will already have their hackles up. "If you concede that not all CBA titles are like this," they wonder, "then how can you paint with such a broad brush?" In other words, if there are exceptions to the rule, how can you still maintain that there's a rule? Hopefully the absurdity of the objection speaks for itself.) There are certainly - to borrow a phrase from Paste Magazine - "signs of (aesthetic) life" in the CBA, but if you ask me, the way to nurture them is not to start pretending that they aren't bucking the trend. CBA readers, writers and apiring writers can be a defensive lot, and I'm as reluctant as the next person to cause offense, so there's a natural tendency to curb well-meaning criticism. I do it all the time. I will probably start doing it again once this post is up. But for now, I'm going to make an effort at transparency, even if it results in a certain type of reader writing me off as uninformed, unfeeling or unsaved.
As so often happens, the debate that ensued in Mark's comments section makes as good, or better, reading. Incidentally, he references an article from World Magazine, "Out of the Ghetto," that makes good reading as well.
Following up on yesterday's terrorist bombing in London, Adrian Warnock reports that the situation could have been a lot worse, if not for a few fortuitous circumstances:
I give thanks for two remarkable coincidences which seem likely to have contributed to the survival of victims because these circumstances facilitated medical care getting to the victims quicker: Firstly, the bomb on a bus went off outside the headquarters of the British Medical Association where doctors were attending meetings and were able to attend victims immediately. Secondly, a meeting of trauma doctors just happened to be occuring at the Royal London Hospital which meant that 18 top trauma doctors could quickly be airlifted to the scenes of these disasters to treat patients who remained trapped.
Is it proper to thank God for Providence? Doesn't matter, I'm going to anyway.
The good people at the World Magazine Blog announce the award for world's ugliest dog. Keep children, clocks, and mirrors out of the room before clicking.
Finally, judging by the Google searches that hit me in the past couple of weeks, we just had a full moon or something:
- i robot movie bible study presbyterian: Admittedly, not quite as much fun as that Andy Griffith Sunday school curriculum, but darn close.
- how to become a crusty babe: Hey, when you've figured that out, how about a search about how to acquire a Crusty Babe?
- alex chiu immortality rings foretold in bible: Not bloody likely, but since when has that ever stopped Alex Chiu's sycophants from claiming six impossible things before breakfast?
- "scott mcclure" "xanga" somehow managed to find me anyway.
- psychiatry diagnosis like in the movie sling blade: I reckon I don't know nothin' about that, but I sure do like them French-fried taters. Mm-hmmm.
- nuke the dutch: Ah, someone after my own heart.
Until next time, enjoy.
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