The barn swallows have returned to Campverano!

Last year was the first one in our new home, alternately described (depending upon my mood) as Casa Verano, Fort Summer, or St. Helena on the Prairie.  Today I add a new name: Campverano, referencing my surname and California's Mission San Juan de Capistrano, of returning swallow fame.

As our first winter here in Hays County drew to a close in 2011, our house became home to a colony of Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica). These wonderful, chatty birds have remarkable aerial-acrobatic skills (90º turns at high speed... inside the front porch!), and a voracious appetite for mosquitoes (perhaps 10X the appetite of the more popular Purple Martins).

Our colony began its migration back to South America at the height of the drought (a little early, according to what I've read). Migratory patterns would have them return in early February (which is when they arrived last year), but there was no sign of them in February or early March. I have worried they might not return as a result of that near-historic drought. In vain, I have looked every day for their return.

I spotted two today, swirling around the eaves my house. The swallows have returned to San Miguel de Campverano!

"Murder," she says.

Travlin' home.

So long.  It was great while it lasted, and it will be missed. 

Repent!

There's no escape.

Death notice

"Beware of refusing to go to the funeral of your own independence."

-- Oswald Chambers

The Tomb of the Unknown God

 

I went to hear Sequentia, one of the world's premiere Early Music ensembles (well, duo for this performance), perform in Houston last Sunday. The program was of musical fragments of German, Old English, and Nordic 9th-11th Century End of Time texts. The setting was the Rothko Chapel in the Menil compound area.

The Executive Director of the Rothko Chapel came out before the performance and briefly discussed the meaning and purpose of the Rothko Chapel (with its giant black and dark grey canvasses). She described it as "sacred space designed for spiritual contemplation," and as part of Mark Rothko's vision and intent. It has holy books from all the World's major (and not so major) religions, suitable for the quiet contemplation/worship of the god(s) of one's own choice (or of Mark Rothko). 

Rothko himself saw the chapel to be a Roman Catholic institution, based upon an Eastern Orthodox chapel. His monochrome paintings were meant to be references to the crucifixion of Christ. Dominique de Menil had other, more ecumenical, thoughts.

Mark Rothko committed suicide before the chapel was completed.

The Universe as a game of chance.

Imagine the universe's creation as a game of chance, like craps. Or like Russian Roulette perhaps. 

Spin.

Click. Click. Click. 

(Really, imagine 480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 clicks.)

 

Click. BANG!

A whale of a story, but that's not the point.

Jakob Steinhardt

There are times I really just want to leave people to their own devices. Wash my hands of them. Shake the dust off my feet and turn.

But it's not an option open to me. Therefore I must continue to say to them (and to myself), "Repent! The Kingdom of God is near!"

Jonah 3:1-10

Common English Bible (CEB)

Nineveh hears God’s word

 The LORD’s word came to Jonah a second time: “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and declare against it the proclamation that I am commanding you.” And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the LORD’s word. (Now Nineveh was indeed an enormous city, a three days’ walk across.) 

 Jonah started into the city, walking one day, and he cried out, “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least significant.

 When word of it reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, stripped himself of his robe, covered himself with mourning clothes, and sat in ashes. Then he announced, “In Nineveh, by decree of the king and his officials: Neither human nor animal, cattle nor flock, will taste anything! No grazing and no drinking water! Let humans and animals alike put on mourning clothes, and let them call upon God forcefully! And let all persons stop their evil behavior and the violence that’s under their control!” He thought, Who knows? God may see this and turn from his wrath, so that we might not perish.

 God saw what they were doing—that they had ceased their evil behavior. So God stopped planning to destroy them, and he didn’t do it.

Coincidental messaging service

Edward John Poynter, Israel in Egypt, 1867

My local classical radio station has been promoting the Texas Choral Consort's upcoming performance of George Frideric Handel's "Israel in Egypt" by breathlessly repeating lines from the oratorio regarding the Biblical plagues visited upon Egypt in the Old Testament book of Exodus. Excerpts from a recorded performance were played last night on the Classically Austin program as a way of promoting the concert. I have to admit to not ever having heard this oratorio before, and I was struck by the passages.

The Morning Prayer readings I use featured the first half Psalm 105 today (1-22). But I have been using the Evening Prayer readings since Advent, because the Psalmody is different, consisting either of different psalms than the morning readings, or of the second half of longer ones. Today's example was Psalm 105:1-22 for Morning Prayer, and Psalm 105:23-45 for Evening Prayer.

Now, in your mind's ear, hear the pleasant sounds you equate with Handel's more popular oratorio "Messiah", but insert these words from the latter half of Psalm 105 instead.

Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

And he increased his people greatly; and made them stronger than their enemies.
He turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants.
He sent Moses his servant; and Aaron whom he had chosen.
They shewed his signs among them, and wonders in the land of Ham.
He sent darkness, and made it dark; and they rebelled not against his word.
He turned their waters into blood, and slew their fish.
Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings.
He spake, and there came divers sorts of flies, and lice in all their coasts.
He gave them hail for rain, and flaming fire in their land.
He smote their vines also and their fig trees; and brake the trees of their coasts.
He spake, and the locusts came, and caterpillers, and that without number,
And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and devoured the fruit of their ground.
He smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of all their strength.
He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.
Egypt was glad when they departed: for the fear of them fell upon them.
He spread a cloud for a covering; and fire to give light in the night.
The people asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a river.
For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant.
And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness:
And gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labour of the people;
That they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws. Praise ye the LORD.

 

Praise ye the Lord indeed, and wonder at the synchronicity of it all.

Mainlining evangelism.

An influx of colorless vinyl

Darkness

"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell."

- C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Getting a Sense of Perspective

If Monsanto used a food additive that caused 200,000 miscarriages a year in the USA, would people be upset enough to boycott their products?

If the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused 210,000 women along the gulf coast to miscarry last year, would that be a shocking scandal worthy of a boycott?

If Planned Parenthood provided abortion services that destroyed 220,000 fetuses in 2011... would that be a good reason to not send them any money?

---


As a culture, we now regard the beginnings of human life in such a way that might cause Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot to blush.  With dark, cruel certainty, we destroy life.

As much as anyone can be, I am a survivor of abortion, in that my mother's obstetrician told her I was a tumor in her uterus and should be removed immediately. He told her she was mistaken about being pregnant, and that putting off the surgery would endanger her life. She was convinced she was pregnant.  

She was right, he was wrong.

Saint Helena on the Prairie

Woke up here one year ago today. Saint Helena on the Prairie.

"There were...plots to rescue Napoleon from captivity including one from Texas, where exiled soldiers from the Grande Armée wanted a resurrection of the Napoleonic Empire in America."

"The following video has been approved by Karl Barth."

Darwinian Reductionism is nothing new

 

Isaiah 44:9-20

The Message (MSG)

Lover of Emptiness

 ^9-11All those who make no-god idols don't amount to a thing, and what they work so hard at making is nothing. Their little puppet-gods see nothing and know nothing—they're total embarrassments! Who would bother making gods that can't do anything, that can't "god"? Watch all the no-god worshipers hide their faces in shame. Watch the no-god makers slink off humiliated when their idols fail them. Get them out here in the open. Make them face God-reality.  ¹²The blacksmith makes his no-god, works it over in his forge, hammering it on his anvil—such hard work! He works away, fatigued with hunger and thirst.
 ^13-17The woodworker draws up plans for his no-god, traces it on a block of wood. He shapes it with chisels and planes into human shape—a beautiful woman, a handsome man, ready to be placed in a chapel. He first cuts down a cedar, or maybe picks out a pine or oak, and lets it grow strong in the forest, nourished by the rain. Then it can serve a double purpose: Part he uses as firewood for keeping warm and baking bread; from the other part he makes a god that he worships—carves it into a god shape and prays before it. With half he makes a fire to warm himself and barbecue his supper. He eats his fill and sits back satisfied with his stomach full and his feet warmed by the fire: "Ah, this is the life." And he still has half left for a god, made to his personal design—a handy, convenient no-god to worship whenever so inclined. Whenever the need strikes him he prays to it, "Save me. You're my god."
 ^18-19Pretty stupid, wouldn't you say? Don't they have eyes in their heads? Are their brains working at all? Doesn't it occur to them to say, "Half of this tree I used for firewood: I baked bread, roasted meat, and enjoyed a good meal. And now I've used the rest to make an abominable no-god. Here I am praying to a stick of wood!"
 ²⁰This lover of emptiness, of nothing, is so out of touch with reality, so far gone, that he can't even look at what he's doing, can't even look at the no-god stick of wood in his hand and say, "This is crazy."

Photo: Popular Science magazine (issue Jan, 1964). It depicts two technicians preparing mechanically animated caveman figure for the exhibition at the 1964/1965 New York World’s Fair.

Isaiah 44:9-20

New International Version (NIV)

 ⁹ All who make idols are nothing,
   and the things they treasure are worthless.
Those who would speak up for them are blind;
   they are ignorant, to their own shame.
¹⁰ Who shapes a god and casts an idol,
   which can profit nothing?
¹¹ People who do that will be put to shame;
   such craftsmen are only human beings.
Let them all come together and take their stand;
   they will be brought down to terror and shame.
 ¹² The blacksmith takes a tool
   and works with it in the coals;
he shapes an idol with hammers,
   he forges it with the might of his arm.
He gets hungry and loses his strength;
   he drinks no water and grows faint.
¹³ The carpenter measures with a line
   and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with chisels
   and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in human form,
   human form in all its glory,
   that it may dwell in a shrine.
¹⁴ He cut down cedars,
   or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
   or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow.
¹⁵ It is used as fuel for burning;
   some of it he takes and warms himself,
   he kindles a fire and bakes bread.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
   he makes an idol and bows down to it.
¹⁶ Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
   over it he prepares his meal,
   he roasts his meat and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
   “Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.”
¹⁷ From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
   he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
   “Save me! You are my god!”
¹⁸ They know nothing, they understand nothing;
   their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see,
   and their minds closed so they cannot understand.
¹⁹ No one stops to think,
   no one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
“Half of it I used for fuel;
   I even baked bread over its coals,
   I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
   Shall I bow down to a block of wood?”
²⁰ Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him;
   he cannot save himself, or say,
   “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?”

Why is this an impossible match?

Best Santa ever.

Great Moments in LCMS Evangelism.

This post is totally out of context.

Ecclesiastical salt shakers

When men reject what they know of God, God gives them up to their own distorted notions and perverted passions, until society stinks in the nostrils of God and of all good people.

Now Christians are set in secular society by God to hinder this process. God intends us to penetrate the world. Christian salt has no business to remain snugly in elegant little ecclesiastical salt cellars; our place is to be rubbed into the secular community, as salt is rubbed into meat, to stop it going bad. And when society does go bad, we Christians tend to throw up our hands in pious horror and reproach the non-Christian world; but should we not rather reproach ourselves? One can hardly blame unsalted meat for going bad. It cannot do anything else.

The real question to ask is: where is the salt?


-- John R.W. Stott

To drive the cold winter away.

Christopher Hitchens has died.

The Rich Man and Lazarus

   “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.  “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’
    “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’
   “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’
   “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’
   “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
   “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

Luke 16:19-31

New International Version (NIV)

 

Bring home Moloch for the Holidays!

Frosty the Moloch.

This is not pepper spray.

More truth than he knew (and feared).

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move."

- Douglas Adams 

There's something happening here...

HAPPENING
Prayer For Now
Malcolm Boyd
Charlie Byrd, guitar

Columbia


A real find earlier this week. This guy was a big influence on me in the 1960s. Adman turned beatnik priest. I didn't know this LP existed. I was being encouraged at the time to consider "The Cloth". I became an adman instead.

It has an interesting sticker on the front cover: "DEPOSITION EXHIBIT 63". Hmmmm.

Free doom.

Source: Frugal dad

I was there. In this crowd.

 

On this day in 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. After breakfast in Fort Worth he flew to Dallas and, with his wife and Governor and Mrs. John Connally, began a motorcade trip in an open car toward downtown Dallas. As the car passed through Dealy Plaza several shots rang out. Both Kennedy and Connally were hit. Kennedy died at 1:00 PM in Parkland Hospital. Vice President Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as president of the United States at 2:38 PM.

What Truly Counts

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16

We should rejoice whenever someone gets well, especially after we have prayed for him. But our joy should not be because the person got well. There are many who must suffer sickness until the end of their lives, so why not this one? Rather, we should rejoice because we see that the Savior has done something for a particular person, that this person’s heart has changed and is awakened with new longing.

I want to say to all who suffer: Yes, pray that the Savior takes things in hand – he wants you to have hope – but do not regard getting well as being so important. The Savior himself was sick. He said, “I was sick and you visited me.” Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought that there must be sick people so the Savior can dwell in them?

I often feel weak, miserable, and ill – all I can do is drag myself around. Outwardly I feel like I am wasting away. Nevertheless I am kept going. Time and again I am given fresh manifestations of God’s kindliness, deeds of God that renew me inwardly and enable me to carry on. The main thing is that Jesus is present in our sickness. And so, dear friends, see to it that Jesus is free to work in you. Your longing should be that Jesus works something in you, and even more importantly, that through you he reaches others.

Whenever we are attacked by sickness, our first prayer should not be, “Lord, heal me, I want to be healed!” but, “Lord Jesus, bring about whatever is according to your will. I will accept quietly in faith whatever you decide, just as it comes.” Pray, lest evil should have the say, lest darkness hold sway. In all the pain and suffering that may befall you, even in the midst of death and the distress it brings, seek the Lord and the desires of his heart. This must be your deepest, most pressing request.

If you take this stand, you will experience something of the kingdom of God. You will know as you have never known before where your help comes from. You will grow so strong that you will be able to overcome every obstacle. Walls of Jericho will fall and mountains will be moved. No earthly power will impress you anymore, be it good or evil. The only thing that will fill your heart is what comes from above.


Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

Binary thought in a Trinitarian reality.

Some Liberals and Conservatives* got together to test him, and they asked him to show them his spiritual credentials. He replied, "At dusk you say, ‘The sky is red; it’ll be fair,’ and at dawn you say, ‘The sky is red and darkening; it’ll rain today.’ You are able to read the clouds but not the signs of the times. A mean and faithless generation asks a sign from me, and the only sign it will get is that of Jonah." So he turned his back on them and left.

When the students went across with him, they forgot to take bread. Jesus said to them, "Now let me warn you to stay away from the yeast of the Liberals and Conservatives." They tried to figure that one out themselves, and decided he had said it because they had no bread. When Jesus found out about it, he said, "Why was it, baby-faiths, that you were hashing over the fact that you have no bread? Haven’t you caught on yet? Don’t you remember the five boxes of crackers of the five thousand and how many basketsful of leftovers you had? Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many basketsful you had left over? Well, why can’t you get it through your heads that I wasn’t speaking to you about bread? Rather, I told you to stay away from the yeast of the Liberals and Conservatives." Then it soaked in that he had not warned of the bread yeast, but of the teachings of the Liberals and Conservatives.





* Originally "Protestants and Catholics".

- Source: Matt's 16, from one to twelve.

Naturalistic Evolution defined

Naturalistic Evolution (def.): the marvelous (presumed) capacity of nature to create the appearance of design, and to produce beings who have the ability to design and to detect design; but which itself has no ability to design, or if it does have that ability, it is forever undetectable.

- Thomas A. Gilson

G. O. S. P. E. L.

Happy Great American Civic Culture Autumnal Festival and Commercial Orgy!

I put up my Great American Civic Culture Autumnal Festival and Commercial Orgy tree this weekend. It's a black plastic tree with orange lights, a garland of gold and yellow metallic leaves, a teddy bear with a Santa cap holding a pumpkin at the base, and topped off by a little turkey (with others decorating the tree). This neo-pagan orgy of commercialism and consumption is celebrated from October 1 through December 25 (with a gluttonous belch on December 31-January 1).

And a Merry Gaccafestco to all!

Without Steve Jobs' vision, you quite possibly wouldn't be reading this.

"Death is very likely the best invention of life. All pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important." 

-- Steve Jobs

Black Dogs can make good pets.

"Here boy! Sit! Shake hands! Lie down! Fetch! Roll over! Play dead! Good boy."

Black. Dog.

I used this to introduce Alpha to a bunch of Lutherans...

Soreness.

“What is the New Testament? A handbook for those who are to be sacrificed.”

--Soren Kierkegaard

Go for a ride with Gonzales

"Just ride," he said.

Steve Reich's "WTC 9/11"

Foe cuss.

Hell O from Texas.

Tin Hat time.

St. Bartholemew's Day

The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy in French) in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations, followed by a wave of Roman Catholic mob violence, both directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants), during the French Wars of Religion. Traditionally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de' Medici, the mother of King Charles IX, the massacre took place six days after the wedding of the king's sister Margaret to the Protestant Henry III of Navarre (the future Henry IV of France). This marriage was an occasion for which many of the most wealthy and prominent Huguenots had gathered in largely Catholic Paris.

The massacre began two days after the attempted assassination of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, the military and political leader of the Huguenots. Starting on 23 August 1572 (the eve of the feast of Bartholomew the Apostle) with murders on orders of the king of a group of Huguenot leaders including Coligny, the massacres spread throughout Paris. Lasting several weeks, the massacre extended to other urban centres and the countryside. Modern estimates for the number of dead vary widely between 5,000 and 30,000 in total.

The massacre also marked a turning point in the French Wars of Religion. The Huguenot political movement was crippled by the loss of many of its prominent aristocratic leaders, as well as many re-conversions by the rank and file, and those who remained were increasingly radicalized. Though by no means unique, it "was the worst of the century's religious massacres." ^[2] Throughout Europe, it "printed on Protestant minds the indelible conviction that Catholicism was a bloody and treacherous religion".^[3]

To Pray Unceasingly…

To Pray Unceasingly…

The ravages of time.

Arkansas banshees

I run my Klipschorns (seen above tucked unobtrusively in the corners of the room) with a McIntosh MA 6100 integrated amplifier (center). After almost 40 years of faithful service, the McIntosh needed some attention, so I took it in for a full restoration. When I got it back last month, the new volume pot from Mac was kinda wonky, so I took it back to be replaced (McIntosh admits that a high percentage of the new not-quite-OEM pots are faulty).

In the interim, a friend loaned me his McIntosh C26 pre-amp, which I used with my old Harman/Kardon Citation 12 amplifier. Neither has been restored, and were used only occasionally over the last few years.

The time came to make the 500 mile round trip to pick up the 6100. As my tech friend and I were talking, I noticed he was running a Citation 12 amp just like mine. He told me a horror story about how it went into complete fail, dumping enough DC into his speakers to fry the voice coils. I hate those kind of stories.

Got home in time for dinner. Too tired to hook up the 6100. Dinner was hamburger steak cooked inside.

We (wife and aged in-laws) were listening to the Ks through my friend's C26 and the Citation 12 at low volume as we prepared to sit down for dinner, when what sounded like the LOUDEST MILITARY/INDUSTRIAL smoke alarm I've ever heard went off. My wife got her parents outside while I ran around looking for something that might have set it off. Screaming so loud I can barely think. I can FEEL the sound in my chest as I move upstairs, where the sound lessens. No smoke. No smell of smoke. Check the attic. No smoke. Run back downstairs and into the garage. No smoke. I start hitting the circuit breaker looking for the alarm (thinking the dinner smoke must have set it off). The last breaker kills the smoke alarm. TWO MINUTES? FIVE MINUTES? I don't know how long it went on, but it seemed like an eternity.

I get everyone back in, check on the condition of the elders, and they're OK. Go over to the amp to make sure there's no smoke smell there. None. But I turn it off anyway, even though it's killed on the same switched-off circuit that the alarm is on (or so I think). Again I check every room. No smoke smells, no fires, no signs of trouble.

After dinner, I have everyone cover their ears and I turn the alarm breaker back on (I think... it's not marked on the panel... the switch that killed the "alarm" says kitchen vent). All quiet. I come back in and try to relax. Decide some jazz will help.

I turn on the amp (the Citation is controlled from the C26).

EAR-SPLITTING, CHEST-PUNCHING NOISE FROM THE K-HORNS!!!! ARKANSAS BANSHEES FROM HELL!!!! Quickly, I turn off the amp. Arrrggghhhhh!

It never was the smoke alarm. It was the Klipschorns screaming for their lives!

The damn Citation had died, just like the one my tech/friend and I had talked about that very day. The Big Ks seemed to have survived (somehow). Un-frigging-believable. That was the loudest thing I have ever heard (sustained). How the K's (and Bob Crites' CT-125s with his revised XO) survived that, I can't imagine. But I am thankful.

As a test, and for ease and safety, I hooked up my $25 T-amp (5 WPC) through the C26. Everything seems OK. All drivers work and sound good. My ears are still ringing, though (in addition to my normal tinnitus).

The MA 6100 is back in-system today. Sounds great. The Citation will be carted off for new outputs (although my first thought was to throw the damn thing into the lake).

"The belief that there are other life forms in the universe is a matter of faith. There is not a single shred of evidence for any other life forms, and in forty years of searching, none has been discovered. There is absolutely no evidentiary reason to maintain this belief."

-- Michael Crichton, Caltech Michelin Lecture, January 17, 2003

Knock, knock.

"Here, then, is the crucial question which we have been leading up to. Have we ever opened our door to Christ? Have we ever invited him in? This was exactly the question which I needed to have put to me. For, intellectually speaking, I had believed in Jesus all my life, on the other side of the door. I had regularly struggled to say my prayers through the key-hole. I had even pushed pennies under the door in a vain attempt to pacify him. I had been baptized, yes and confirmed as well. I went to church, read my Bible, had high ideals, and tried to be good and do good. But all the time, often without realising it, I was holding Christ at arm's length, and keeping him outside. I knew that to open the door might have momentous consequences. I am profoundly grateful to him for enabling me to open the door. Looking back now over more than fifty years, I realise that that simple step has changed the entire direction, course and quality of my life."

-- John Stott, quoted in Timothy Dudley-Smith, John Stott: The Making of a Leader (Inter-Varsity Press: Leicester, 1999), p. 95

John R.W. Stott, 27 April 1921 – 27 July 2011

"The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of
derelict, half-built towers -- the ruins of those who began
to build and were unable to finish.  For thousands of
people still ignore Christ's warning and undertake to
follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of
doing so.  The result is the great scandal of Christendom
today, so-called 'nominal Christianity'."

--John R.W. Stott, from "Basic Christianity" (rev. edn. London: IVP, 1971),
p. 108.

I miss working at City Hall.

Let us prey.

"...O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle-- be Thou near them! With them-- in spirit-- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of their guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief... for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen."

-- Mark Twain, from The War Prayer

The Harrow & The Harvest - Making of the Album Cover

An eye for the truth.

 
Gabriel, comte de Montgomery, seigneur de Lorges (5 May 1530 – 26 June 1574), a French nobleman, was a captain in Henry II's Scots Guards. He is remembered for mortally injuring Henry in a jousting accident and subsequently converting to Protestantism, the faith that the Scottish Guard sought to suppress.

On either 30 June or 1 July 1559, during a jousting match to celebrate the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis between Henry II and his longtime Habsburg enemies, a splinter of wood from Montgomery's shattered lance pierced Henry's eye and entered his brain, mortally injuring him.

From his deathbed Henry absolved Montgomery of any blame, but, finding himself disgraced, Montgomery retreated to his estates in Normandy. There he studied theology and converted to Protestantism, making him an enemy of the state.

Piece of My Heart: The Story of Janis Joplin

Piece of My Heart: The Story of Janis Joplin

Ruination Day

"The Christian landscape is strewn with the wreckage of
derelict, half-built towers -- the ruins of those who began
to build and were unable to finish.  For thousands of
people still ignore Christ's warning and undertake to
follow him without first pausing to reflect on the cost of
doing so.  The result is the great scandal of Christendom
today, so-called 'nominal Christianity'."

--John R.W. Stott, from "Basic Christianity" (rev. edn. London: IVP, 1971),
p. 108.

Evolutionary tendencies.

"People do not drift toward holiness. Apart from grace-
driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness,
prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.
We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift
toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward
superstition and call it faith. We cherish the indiscipline of
lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward
prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have
escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince
ourselves we have been liberated."

– D.A. Carson

Cribbed from CQOD.

So shall I love my God because He first loved me...

BD's BD

Flying "Stand By"