Mac vs. PC Parody (I'm a Christian)

For more of the parodies on YouTube Click here.

Inherent Unmarketability

How do you make attractive that which is not?
How do you sell emptiness, vulnerability and nonsuccess?
How do you talk about descent when everything is about ascent?
How can you possibly market letting-go in a capitalist culture?
How do you present Jesus to a Promethean mind?
How do you talk about dying to a church trying to appear perfect?

This is not going to work (which might be my first step).

From Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr

Faith has come to mean its exact opposite

One of my favorite writers, Richard Rohr, O.F.M. shared his thoughts recently on NPR's "This I Believe"

Click here to read or listen to his short essay. We must begin to believe in the Mystery again or our faith won't resemble faith at all.

An Experimenting Church

Interesting thought that I felt I had to share. I'm thankful that the church I attend has the kind of feel that the quote embodies. It comes from a blog called Small Ritual:

“There isn’t much space or time given nowadays in churches for just
experimenting or being, just to see what happens, even if no-one comes – Just
being your own community by itself growing with God. But as any scientist knows, it’s the purposeless fooling-around non-results-oriented experiments that come up with the big discoveries”

Anabaptists are already monks

The New Monasticism website has listed 12 Marks (or rules) on what a new monasticism is shaping to be. I think it is interesting to see how many of those "Marks" resemble what many Anabaptists already pratice in thier life and thought... and if it doesn't then it should. Check it out.

Advent... Sacrament... Ordinance

My religious tradition does away with the language of sacraments in favor of ordinances in which any member of the community may administer those acts often viewed as to be done by the clergy only. We don't usually see certain parts of the church as a sacrament; it is the work of all members of the community. Even though we don't always act upon it like we profess.

In some of my devotional time, I have been reading Advent and Christmas with Thomas Merton and today's reading said this:

Advent is the "sacrament" of the presence of God in His world, in the
Mystery of Christ at work in History...

I agree with Merton that God's sacrament to us is his presence in the world. Christ comes in mystery and already at work in history to deliver us from the shackles of our sin and life-less-ness, that can be seen as a sacrament. Yet my tradition might take it a step further in saying it was God's ordinance for us to be delivered and given abundant life. It is an ordinance because it is our responsibility to carry on that abundant life and offer it to others in the form of Jesus's life, teachings, passion, death, resurrection and ascension.

We are a part of the sacrament of God's presence.