Category Archives: Just for Fun

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Friday Link Love

Away we go:

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Speed Creating — Dominic Wilcox

I included a link to this earlier in the week, but Wilcox’s stuff is so cool I just had to post it in Link Love. Whimsical! Practical! Genius!

At left is the foil bust.

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Where Am I? The Middle Class Crisis of Place — Christianity Today

To exist at all, we must be somewhere. And as embodied creatures, we are implaced in specific contexts. Yet in contemporary culture, this aspect of human existence is threatened by what Bartholomew calls a “crisis of place” created by several elements of our technological society. To fully flourish as human beings—and to flourish as entire communities—Bartholomew argues, we need to recover the lost art of placemaking.

I especially like the spiritual/incarnational practices he suggests to recover a sense of Place.

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How “Not Giving a ****” Can Really Help You a Lot — Improvised Life

Interesting videos with George Carlin and Louis C.K. (one of my favorite comedians) about truth-telling, authenticity and creativity. Obvious warning: both have potty mouths. If that bothers you, don’t send me letters clutching your pearls. Just don’t watch.

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The Illusion of Choice — An Infographic

The statistics in infographics always needs to be taken with a grain of salt. However, the basic assertion is this: despite a dizzying number of media options today, 90% of what we read, watch or listen to is controlled by just six corporations.

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And another graphic, Highways as the London Subway Map — Good Design

h/t Keith Snyder. I love maps, and this one is especially fun to look at.

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I’m off to Big D on Sunday for the NEXT Church conference. I’ve been so focused on getting my workshop ready that I haven’t had a chance to get excited about seeing old friends and getting inspired for ministry. It’s going to be great! And if any of you Blue Room readers are coming, be sure and say hello.

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Friday Link Love

We’re all over the place this week:

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Barbie Trashes Her Dreamhouse — Carrie M. Becker

1/6 scale hoarder’s house. Awesome and disturbing:

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Aurora 2012 — Vimeo (video)

Amazing. Good job, God.

Aurora 2012 from Christian Mülhauser on Vimeo.

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Why Morning Routines Are Creativity Killers — Time

Imaginative insights are most likely to come to us when we’re groggy and unfocused. The mental processes that inhibit distracting or irrelevant thoughts are at their weakest in these moments, allowing unexpected and sometimes inspired connections to be made. Sleepy people’s “more diffuse attentional focus,” they write, leads them to “widen their search through their knowledge network. This widening leads to an increase in creative problem solving.” By not giving yourself time to tune in to your meandering mind, you’re missing out on the surprising solutions it may offer. (If you happen to be one of those perky morning people, your most inventive time comes when you’re winding down in the early evening.

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Show and Tell: Six Ways to Teach Your Children the Faith — U.S. Catholic

“The” faith is the Catholic faith. But these simple approaches can be adapted for other contexts:

Try asking your kids what they thought of the Sunday homily. (If they answer, “It was the most boring thing I ever heard!” and you agree, consider saying so. Avoid insincere praise, which they can spot in a minute.) Ask them what they might have said about the gospel if they’d given the homily that day. They might surprise you.

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And finally, just for fun… Parsing the President’s Spotify Playlist — Maddow Blog

There’s been plenty of snickering on Twitter and pop-culture blogs about the inclusion of not one, but two songs by former Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker. I think of them as the playlist’s equivalent to the Affordable Heathcare for America Act: so bland and watered-down that you can’t believe anyone’s as worked up about them as they are. (And let’s be honest: you know these are some of the ones Obama selected himself. We like to think he’s Mr. Super Cool, but don’t forget, this is a guy who keeps his cell phone in a belt holster.)

I’m listening to it right now…

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Dear Moms: I Stink at Valentine’s Day… But That Works Out Well for You

Last night I posted a link to these cute paper toys (PDF template) on Facebook and said I wanted to make one for each of the kids and have them at their places at breakfast this morning.

That piece of paper is still sitting on the printer.

Have you ever met someone who just rubs you the wrong way and you can’t figure out why? On paper, the two of you should get along great. You have similar likes, similar temperaments. Other people you know and respect absolutely adore her. But you just… grate on one another.

I have that relationship with Valentine’s Day.

I know people who don’t like Christmas, or who want to run and hide on Mother’s Day. Today is my why-do-we-need-to-do-this day. (Thank you XKCD.)

Except for the chocolate. I love the chocolate. But chocolate is not a sometimes food in our house. It is my sacramental meal for oh, pretty much all of Ordinary Time.

I am grateful to have love in my life in many abundant forms. And I appreciate those who have repurposed the day, like my friend Jan, who calls this “agape day” (agape is a Greek word meaning self-giving love). Jan encourages people to practice random acts of kindness today. I’m also a big fan of the Vagina Monologues and its accompanying activism.

Unfortunately, when you have little kids that stuff gets supplanted by the cultural expectation of buying cards, followed by riding kids’ butts to get them filled out in time for the Big Exchange in Which Everyone Gets A Card, followed by the Festival of Furtive Recycling.

Call me a V-Grinch, but I’d rather spend my precious butt-riding time teaching my kid her multiplication tables. (Oh eights, why do you plague us so?)

Last year we waited too long to get Caroline’s cards, and by the time we got to the store, they were completely sold out. So we went home and printed some cards off the internet, which is fine except that
a) we don’t own card stock and
b) we have a black and white printer.

Saddest valentines ever.

Meanwhile the mothers in my neighborhood like to attach candy and homemade crafts to their kids’ cards, or provide thoughtful gifts for the teachers, or have their kids make all of the valentines from scratch. Last year Margaret was even invited to a Valentine’s Day party. I am baffled, and awed by all this having-it-togetherness.

The only reason my kids even have valentines this year is because their great grandmother bought them some when we visited her a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully the girls got them addressed while I was gone last week. But this morning James began to cry at the thought of giving his Chuck the Dump Truck cards away, and did I mention he was expected to sign them as a preschool “literacy activity”?

I am generally a proponent of literacy. Except that James hasn’t decided if we wants to be right or left handed, so it takes him about ten minutes to write his name (times 14), and he needs at least an 8×5 sheet of paper to get all the letters to fit. So I signed his name on some leftover princess and Snoopy cards from the girls’ stash, and will be the mom of the kid who makes all the other kids look like geniuses because he didn’t even try to write his name, not once.

And let’s be perfectly honest—parenting does have that component to it, does it not? The sidewise glance over one’s shoulder. The casual reconnaissance to discern which mutiplication table your kids’ friends are currently mastering. (Again with the lamentable eights!) The sigh of relief that at least you’re doing something right because what kind of mom can’t even sew the dang patches on a Brownie sash?

So I’m working on embracing my ineptness on Valentine’s Day, and seeing it as a ministry. We all need to feel like we’re doing well sometimes, because so much of parenting is like playing whack-a-mole with our bare hands because the mallet walked off a long time ago.

So if my mediocrity on this day allows someone else to say, “I so don’t have my s*** together, but at least I can poke a lollipop through a perforated hole on the Rapunzel card”… then I’m happy. It’s a service I provide to the sisterhood.

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Monday Miscellany

1. Preacher Camp was awesome as usual. I always come back physically exhausted but energized in every other way.

2. Robert gets super props for holding down the fort while I was gone, and not once griping on the phone about it. Caroline was home sick from school on Wednesday, Margaret on Thursday, and James Friday. That’s pretty typical when I’m gone.

3. Which means we’re bracing for the end of the month, when I go to NEXT Church in Dallas. (Are you going?) Thanks, by the way, to everyone who’s sharing ideas about vital congregational structures.

4. I received an e-mail from my editor last week with the marked up manuscript attached. His message was so darn nice and affirming, I can’t stop reading it. Really, it’s just sitting in my inbox, and I return to it several times a day. I suspect, however, that he was simply cushioning the blow of all. those. comments. Yeah. I’m in denial about those. I need to snap out of it soon, otherwise the publisher’s going to call in a few weeks and I’ll be all, “What, you need more from me? But he said it was a fun, lively, likable, compelling read!”

Yes, I have it memorized.

5. The Fellowship of Prayer is still available through Chalice, assuming members of my family have not snatched up every last copy. Which is possible. Though it is nice to receive rave reviews from one’s Catholic grandmother.

6. Caroline had a great birthday, though a little slapdash since I was away the week before. She’ll celebrate with friends this weekend—it’s a slumber party, Lord help us. I thought the Presidents Day weekend was good timing for a sleepover, since there will be a long weekend to recuperate.

7. Caroline got a number of lovely things, but her favorites included a panflute I got her from Ten Thousand Villages, and a rock carved into the shape of a heart that has the word STRENGTH etched on it. Got a big hug for that one. Have I mentioned my girl’s absolute love for rocks and random musical instruments?

8. An elder in our church preached yesterday. It was nice not to have to get right back into the pulpit after preacher camp, but I actually received a good word from him as well. He’s a builder by trade and avocation, and is always doing some kind of work on his house. He said people always ask him, “Won’t you be happy when this is all done?” He always says, “I’m happy now.”

I tend to be a destination-not-journey person, but of course he’s right. There is no “destination” anyway. Not really.

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Friday Link Love

Just a couple this week—stuff I found before Preacher Camp:

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To Kill a Mockingbird Makes Its Mark, 50 Years after Film’s Release — Daily Beast

Wonderful article about a great film. Even includes my favorite anecdote, which I read in Vanity Fair years ago:

The Pecks forged a close bond with [Harper Lee,] the reclusive author after a trip to her home in Monroeville, Ala., and her visit to the set. On the first day of shooting, with a tear in her eye, she took Peck aside and whispered, “You have a little pot belly, just like my daddy.” “Harper, that’s called great acting,” quipped Peck.

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In Which I Fix My Girlfriend’s Grandparents’ WiFi and am Hailed as a Conquering Hero– McSweeneys

The warrior closed his eyes, summoning the power of his ancestors, long departed but watchful still. And then with the echoing beep of his digital watch, he moved with deadly speed, wrapping his battle-hardened hands around the power cord at the back of the Router.

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Friday Link Love

Just a few today:

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Joy of Books — YouTube

I cannot fathom how long this took… but I’m glad they spent the time.

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NOW we're talkin'!

New Playgrounds Are Safe… And That’s Why Nobody Uses Them — Atlantic

I couldn’t agree more. I can’t count the number of times I’ve stood at the bottom of a lame plastic slide just in case one of my kids flies off the bottom—because it happened to me when I was a kid—and then realized, “Who am I kidding? They’re going to grind to a halt halfway up and have to scoot their way off. Childhood today sucks.”

And while I’m on the topic, why do parents say “Good job” when their kid reaches the bottom of a slide? “Way to be subject to gravity!”

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How Do We Identify Good Ideas? — Jonah Lehrer

The inconsistency of genius is a consistent theme of creativity: Even those blessed with ridiculous talent still produce works of startling mediocrity. (The Beatles are the exception that proves the rule, although their subsequent solo careers prove that even Lennon and McCartney were fallible artists.) The larger point is that mere imagination is not enough, for even those with prodigious gifts must still be able to sort their best from their worst, sifting through the clutter to find what’s actually worthwhile.

…But this raises the obvious question: How can we sort our genius from our rubbish?

The answer may surprise you… and it has implications for Sabbath, in my opinion.

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Free Cabin P0rn 

I wish it weren’t called that, but whatever.

We talk a lot in our family about the idea of a “self house.” Caroline came up with the name at Christmas several years ago. She told Robert she wanted to give me my own small cabin in the backyard “where Mommy can go when she’s feeling mad.” Sigh. I was half dismayed that Mommy apparently gets mad often enough to need a whole separate building to contain it, half blown away by her idea, which let’s face it, is spot on. Who wouldn’t love a self house?

This site is full of self houses, and the story snippets are fascinating, the pictures arresting. I was reminded of my friend Karen, who recommended a book years ago about desert spirituality called The Solace of Fierce Landscapes. OK, I then bought the book and never read it. But don’t you see the solace of fierce landscapes when you look through these photos?

Oh and Caroline, if you ever read this, here’s the one I’ve picked out:

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And speaking of a space of one’s own, I’m off to Montreat on Sunday for a week of Preacher Camp. It’s an intense week socially, academically, and… gastronomically. (We eat out a lot.) But every night I retire to my own “cabin” of sorts, and it’s very very nice. And then by Friday I’m very happy to get back home to the chaos.

My papers are written and I can’t wait. Take care.

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Friday Link Love

The Cult of Collaboration — Fernando Gros

Just jokin'. Sort of.

…We often need to collaborate in order to solve really big problems. And, as humans, we also need to work alongside other people to satisfy more basic emotional desires for community and belonging.

But, the hard slog of creating, innovating and thinking is something we largely do alone.

That’s something I totally agree with. And, it worries me that in many parts of society, including schools, we are not encouraging people to develop the skills required to work alone, for extended periods of time, on complex problems.

Add in the fact that smartphones mean that we need never be alone again, and this is an issue worth thinking about. Alone. Or together.

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Religion for Atheists — Alain de Botton

We are far more desperate than secular modernity recognises. All of us are on the edge of panic and terror pretty much all the time – and religions recognise this. We need to build a similar awareness into secular structures.
Religions are fascinating because they are giant machines for making ideas vivid and real in people’s lives: ideas about goodness, about death, family, community etc. Nowadays, we tend to believe that the people who make ideas vivid are artists and cultural figures, but this is such a small, individual response to a massive set of problems. So I am deeply interested in the way that religions are in the end institutions, giant machines, organisations, directed to managing our inner life. There is nothing like this in the secular world, and this seems a huge pity.

The above link is to an FAQ about Botton’s TED talk on Atheism 2.0, which is outstanding and available here.

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Pomodoro Technique

If you’re not familiar with the pomodoro technique for time management, it’s incredibly simple and very effective. I wrote Sabbath in the Suburbs primarily using techniques like this one.

Poke around the website to learn more about it, though for heaven’s sake, I don’t know why you’d need a $26 book to understand it, let alone the tomato-shaped timer, although it is cute.

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And along the lines of time management:

The Biggest Myth in Time Management — Harvard Business Review

In a nutshell: That we can get it all done. (Comments are interesting, trying to diagnose “Brad’s” problem in the article.)

I think this simple realization has profound spiritual implications, way beyond simple time management. But then again, I would think that, I just wrote a book about Sabbath…

Have a good weekend. It’s a long weekend for us, what with teacher work days on Monday and Tuesday. We have our congregation’s annual meeting on Sunday, after which the kids and I head to Johnstown, Pennsylvania for a short visit with Robert’s grandmother.

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Friday Link Love

Where did the week go? Oh yeah, to Baltimore for a planning meeting for the NEXT Church. Now that’s a group of folks with some big dreams for the church! Stay tuned… and if you are of the Presbyterian flavor, register today for the 2012 conference!

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Nothing is Impossible — YouTube

Beautiful and inspiring:

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Physics, Miracles and Witchcraft: 50 Years of A Wrinkle in Time — Big Think

I recently read A Wrinkle in Time to the girls and was re-astounded at its beauty, complexity and depth:

What [L'Engle] seems to have intended to do is add a new twist (wrinkle?) to C. S. Lewis’s Narnia books. Those, too, combine fantasy with a religious message; The Magician’s Nephew even includes an element of planet-hopping sci-fi. But while the Lewis of Nephew was a veteran children’s author who knew, metaphysically speaking, where he stood, the L’Engle of Wrinkle was a relative newcomer, and there’s something less slick and complacent about her universe. Blend pagan myth with Christian themes and you’re repeating an old formula; stir in large quantities of secular literature and modern science, and you get a more intriguing, more volatile chemistry.

There’s also a discussion of a pivotal scene in the book (one of my favorites), which may be ”the single most outrageous scene in classic children’s fiction.”

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Most Runway Models Meet the BMI Criteria for Anorexia — Daily Mail

A magazine dedicated to plus-size fashion and models has sparked controversy with a feature claiming that most runway models meet the Body Mass Index criteria for anorexia.

Accompanied by a bold shoot that sees a nude plus-size model posing alongside a skinny ‘straight-size’ model, PLUS Model Magazine says it aims to encourage plus-size consumers to pressure retailers to better cater to them, and stop promoting a skinny ideal.

Lots of very arresting photos of a beautiful “plus-size” model.

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Tackling “Wicked” Problems — Faith and Leadership

There are hard problems, and there are wicked problems:

Steve Jobs was a master at dealing with wicked problems, and when he came back to Apple [in 1996], it was in a very bad place. They had the success of the Macintosh, and then they really struggled.

Most CEOs would come back and say, “How do I sell more computers? We’ll have to expand the number of consumers who are interested in my products. We’ll have to hire a chief marketing officer.” It’s a hard problem — “How do I sell more computers?”

Jobs came in and asked different kinds of questions about what could that company even be. He famously said his objective was to make a dent in the universe. He asked, “How do I transform how people interact with each other and the devices that enable them to communicate?” It’s a totally different kind of thing.

I talk about this all the time in the church. We are very good at avoiding the wicked problems by asking the wrong questions: how can we halt membership decline? How do we get young people back to church? Wrong questions.

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Mike Rowe Answers Your Questions — Reddit

This is a couple years old, but couldn’t help but share. We love Mike Rowe and Dirty Jobs in our house:

Oodles of fun anecdotes, commentary, and yes opera singin’. Also, his answer to “Is there any chance you’ll stop having sex with my wife in her dreams? It’s getting pretty old, Mike” is so elegant, it would have made Archimedes jealous.

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May you all have a dreamy weekend.

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Friday Link Love

Jo Rowling

First, I love all the responses to the Sunday School post. Let’s keep that conversation going, shall we?

And now…

J.K. Rowling’s Writing Process in Her Own Words — Shelley Souza

This is just a fun read for HP fans, and obviously of interest for writers too:

Her compelling cast of characters came to life in her imagination because she never faltered in her belief that Harry Potter was the story she was meant to write.

It took me five years to work out this very long plot. On that train, I came up with lots of the characters you meet at the school. Loads and loads of detail, but not really the narrative. It’s as though, subconsciously, for years, I had been preparing for writing Harry Potter.

During those five years this mass of material was generated, some of which will never find its way into the books, will never need to be in the books. It’s just stuff I need to know, for my own pleasure—partly for my own pleasure and partly because I like reading a book where I have a sense that the author knows everything. They might not be telling me everything but you have that confidence that the author really knows everything.

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Good list, geared toward pastors. They all resonate, especially the one about not just reading leadership/administration books. I easily get sucked into those, because they are required for the transformation training I’m doing, they’re easy to read, and yes, they’re useful. Instead I have this weird idea that in this, the first year of my fifth decade, I want to only read literature that was written before I was born. Sort of a way of getting perspective on just how short a time I’ve been on this planet. So much of what I read is of the moment. Not sure I’ll do that but the thought intrigues me.
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The Seven Laws of Leanness — Women’s Health Magazine
Good reminders here. There really is no trick to it, folks.
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So every six months I have an automatic tickler that reminds Robert and me to have the safety reminder discussion with the kids. How do you call 911 and why? What’s the fire plan? What about going with strangers?
I clipped this article several months ago, which talks about how confusing the “don’t talk to strangers” thing is. Because sometimes you have to.

It’s all part of rewriting the rules of stranger danger. “That message is not effective,” says Cirillo. “Stranger danger portrays a man jumping out of a bush with a trenchcoat on, and children are trained to look just for that.”

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children agrees; like Cirillo, the Center focuses on teaching kids to speak up for themselves and never go anywhere with anyone they’re not supposed to be with. But cases like Leiby’s happen and we need to talk to our kids about how to handle them — namely, scream loudly, “You’re not my mom” until someone pays attention and never, no matter what, get into a car or go into someone’s home unless you’ve got parental permission.

But in refining the stranger danger axiom, Cirillo prefers to teach children about “tricky people” rather than zero in on sinister strangers. Who are they? “Anyone who tries to get you to break your safety rules,” she says.

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And on a happier note… if you are a pastor, educator or worship leader with kids in your congregation, you need to be reading Worshiping with Children. It’s just chock full.

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Have a wonderful weekend, folks.

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Friday Link Love

NextChurch2012

I still want to know your greatest tech challenge, but here are some other things to ponder:

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“53″ by e.e. cummings

Another great manifesto for 2012:

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
for even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

More at the link.

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Walker Percy Interviews Himself — Andrew Sullivan

This is from Christmas Day and I am still going back to it. There’s an impertinence and a wild sort of reverence here:

Q: Would you exclude, for example, scientific humanism as a rational and honorable alternative [to faith]?

A: Yes.

Q: Why?

A: It’s not good enough.

Q: Why not?

A: This life is too much trouble, far too strange, to arrive at the end of it and then to be asked what you make of it and have to answer “Scientific humanism.” That won’t do. A poor show. Life is a mystery, love is a delight. Therefore I take it as axiomatic that one should settle for nothing less than the infinite mystery and the infinite delight, i.e., God. In fact I demand it. I refuse to settle for anything less. I don’t see why anyone should settle for less than Jacob, who actually grabbed aholt of God and would not let go until God identified himself and blessed him.

Q: Grabbed aholt?

A: A Louisiana expression.

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How Music Works in Worship — Troy Bronsink

Another perceptive offering from Troy.

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And now, from the Department of Publicity:

Church folks, don’t forget the Lent Devotional Guide I wrote for Chalice Press. Also available in e-format! Unfortunately, there aren’t samples available online, but if you’d like a free sample of the first few entries, e-mail maryannmcdana at gmail dot com.

Also, the NEXT Church 2012 conference is going to be great. I’m leading a workshop called ”Agile Church: Rethinking Congregational Structures,” but there are a lot of other reasons to come (including the aforementioned Troy). Hope to see you in Dallas.