Lenten Advice

"A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire."
Thomas Merton

A Lenten Prayer ...

Forty days alone,

a wilderness of thoughts,

tempting and inviting thoughts,

which could so easily have distracted you from your task, your mission, your vision.

Yet you emerged, stronger and more attuned to all that had to be done, despite a time constraint that to our eyes would have seemed hopeless.

We too live in stressful times.

Demands are made of our time,

that leave so little

for the important things of life.

We are easily distracted

in the wilderness of our lives,

by every call to go this way or that,

to turn stone to bread

leap from mountains,

and do all that would keep us from the truth.

We listen to the voices of this world,

and ignore the one who endured all this and so much more, and emerged triumphant, that we might not have to suffer so.

Forgive us, Father,

when we get distracted from our task.

Forgive us those times when we try

to be all things to all men, and fail to be anything to anyone.

Courtesy Cathleen Getchell,

Darwin & Einstein on the Origin of the Species ...

Charles Darwin, often called the father of evolution, is best known for his work titled The Origin of the Species. In chapter six of that book, he goes into great detail about the human eye. He writes: "To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of the spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection (evolution), seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree."

Renowned scientist Albert Einstein, named Person of the Century by TIME magazine in 1999, was an agnostic. He did not believe in a personal God. However, he did say this: "Everyone who is seriously interested in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe -- a spirit vastly superior to man, and one in the face of which our modest powers must feel humble."

As You Read the Bible ...

"Marvel at God's Goodness and let yourself be overwhelmed with the "Yes Me!" thought ..."

Ed Noble, Teaching Pastor,
Journey Community Church,
La Mesa, California

As You Read the

Some Thoughts on Spirituality

“People change and needs change. So what was spirituality once is spirituality no more. What generally goes under the name of spirituality is merely the record of past methods.”

Don’t cut the person to fit the coat.

“When Christ bids you ‘Come,’ He bids you ‘Come and die.’” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“Let's not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here's what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.”

Jesus of Nazareth

"All I know is that I can’t keep pretending that I am immune to the things I spend my time doing, watching and listening to. I can’t keep thinking Proverbs was wrong and it is possible to put coals in your lap without getting burned.

At some point, I’ve got to be honest with myself. And God is making that harder and harder to ignore lately." Jon Acuff

Go to Church!

“My own experience is that when I first became a Christian, about fourteen years ago, I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn’t go to the Churches and Gospel Halls … If there is anything in the teaching of the New Testament which is in the nature of a command, it is that you are obliged to take the Sacrament, and you can’t do it without going to Church. I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.”

-- from “Answers to Questions on Christianity,” God in the Dock