trotter – it’s like a Mexican bus!tank – it’s a white truck.
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.Teddy Roosevelt
For My Mother, On Her Birthday.Once, when I was in my early twenties, either twenty-three or twenty-four, I remember driving somewhere with Mom. I was depressed. I don’t remember what had depressed me, but I was very sad. Mom and I were alone in the car. Mom could tell that I was depressed and was trying to cheer me up, although I didn’t want to be cheered up. Mom said, “I want some ice cream. Do you want some ice cream? I do.” I told her that I didn’t want any ice cream and Mom continued driving passed the restaurant where she had suggested we get ice cream. “Were you going to get some ice cream?” I asked, as we drove passed. She smiled and said, “No, that’s okay. I don’t want any.” I recall thinking, at that exact moment, that Mom loved me more than I loved her and that she knew this and that it did not bother her. I recall thinking that surely this was what love was— knowing that you loved someone more than they loved you and not being bothered by it. It was a wonderful moment. It was the first time in many years that I learned something very obvious and yet very true about love, and I told myself then that I should always remember that moment, lest I forget what love was.
As we have told you many times, the designated time for confession of sin is not here at this Table. If you are walking with the Lord, you will confess sin whenever you commit it, and you will put it right with anyone you need to put it right with immediately. As we all need reminders to do this diligently, we have a time set aside for weekly confession at the beginning of the service. This Table, at the conclusion of the service, was not designed to serve as a time of morbid introspection.But what of those who do not confess their sins appropriately? Week after week, they come to this Table without having prepared themselves to do so. What is happening to them in that case? Though the Table wasn’t designed to foster introspection, it does have a design feature that deals with those who refuse to examine themselves appropriately.Moses warns the people of Israel that God will see to it that their sin will find them out (Num. 32:23). The Bible teaches that this Table is a time of nourishment for the faithful. But for those who are not dealing with secret and hidden sin appropriately, this Table is a time of manifestation. This is why many Corinthians had taken sick, and had died. This Table brings things to light. Heaven and earth meet in this meal, just as they do in the great day of judgment, and this means that God is in the process of bringing all things to light. He does this inexorably, and in accordance with His covenant word.This means that every time we partake of the bread and wine, for those with a double life it is a time of unfolding secrets. That money taken from your employer and never put right, a pattern of hidden homosexual sin, or secret infidelity of other forms . . . all are being brought to light. Regardless of what we think we are doing, every participation in communion is an objective request from us, asking God to bring the hidden things to light. And this is a prayer that God consistently answers, whether we know we are praying it or not, and whether or not we would like it if we found out that this is what He is doing. But this need not be grim news. It is in fact gospel. When God brings sin to light, there is an opportunity for free and full forgiveness.
1 Corinthians 10:16-17: Is not this cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?
Many Christians over the centuries have thought of the Lord’s Supper as a kind of continuing or second incarnation. First the Son gets embodied in flesh, but now that He’s gone away He gets embodied in another material. Nowadays, He dwells among us not in a human body but in bread.
This kind of analogy between the incarnation and the presence of Christ in the Supper has produced all sorts of bad habits. If this is Jesus here on the table, we should bow down and worship Him. We should keep the bread after we’re done, and maybe even preserve a bit in a golden chest so we can go back and venerate it later.
One way to say this is that we should not think of the Eucharist not so much as Christmas – as if the Son were born again in bread – but instead think about it instead in terms of Advent. This table marks a triple Advent: It celebrates the past coming of the Lord; it is the coming of the Lord; and it looks ahead to the coming of the Lord. We commemorate the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; we feed on Him by the Spirit; we proclaim the Lord’s death until He come.
When we view it as an Advent meal, we see that this Supper is about Jesus’ absence as well as His presence; it’s about the future as well as the present. It is a present feast, a feast we celebrate because the Lord has come. But it is not yet a full banquet, because the Lord is still to come.
Dr. Leithart gave this as a Eucharist meditation this morning. convicting, inspiring, and beautiful.
via leithart.com
"I just thought of something! If you kicked someone's donkey in the nose, you could say, 'I just kicked your ass in the face!"-jon and jon
i’m gonna put a curse on you and all your children will be born naked
— jimi hendrix
via a year and a bit
“The moment arrives when you say,
‘I don’t dislike this man,
but how did I marry him?’
Something about his wintry voice,
the way he can’t or won’t show his face,
and how small and alone you feel
out here on earth’s curve,
driving day and night,
never reaching a destination,
until you realize you’re running parallel to him,
and you’ll never meet.”
Vanishing Point by Freya Manfred
this is probably the most heartbreaking thing i've read since Of Mice and Men four years ago. absolutely stunning.
via among the pines
to write, one must have been loved. to write well, one must be a lover.
writing about life, now, in the 21st century, is to write about things that have been written about, at best, a dozen times. the better bits of life: the sunsets, the sunrises, the lovers' kisses over morning coffee, they have all been written about too many times to even think about, much less count. but boredom is only done by the bored. it's the trivializing, the quick-to-look-away, the all-too-easily-pleased-by-flashing-things, in short, the cool teenage boys among us, who are the only ones to think that a sunset is a sunset is a sunset.
it's easy to know in your head that each sunset is different. every night a different ray of light hits different water particles at different angles. seems like a ridiculous waste of creative energy and time.
many girls have good legs. it took the wisdom of Solomon to see that the Shulamite's were unlike others girls' because they were carved out of ivory. it took him several chapters to describe them. and you get the feeling that he never really was satisfied with his attempts. he kept going back to the legs with different approaches. and then he gave it up all together. vanity of vanities, indeed.
if you love, you will see. if you want to love, you must see. it's one of those vicious cycles life seems to be full of. if you want to appreciate sunsets, you must watch them. again and again. and to truly watch them, you must appreciate them. you can watch them one way, the way you usually do, or you can watch and choose to appreciate. and, after a few weeks or perhaps, if your soul is still delicate, a few days, you will realize that the sky wasn't quite that shade of pink yesterday, that the clouds weren't fiery like that last week, and that the sun looks more like a drop of God's blood tonight than it did on Monday. when you choose to love something, you get acquainted with it, you understand it, and in the end you know it. even, no, especially in the King James sense of the word.
my father knows my mother well. he knows her like a connoisseur knows his favorite wine, like a student knows his favorite painting, like Adam knew Eve in that time full of blinding wonder and incredulity before he ate the fruit. there is between them all the familiarity of more than half a lifetime spent together and all the nervous joy of newlyweds. my mother once told me that a detective looking for counterfeit currency said, "i look at the real bills all day long so that when i see the false stuff, i know it's different right away." my father knows his wife like that. he's watched her so much, stared so often, lost himself so many times, that when anything changes, he knows.
my Father knows His bride like that, only more. my Father knows His spoken world like that, only more. my Father knows me like that, only more.
if you love it, it will become lovely. but you have to love every good thing about it. every little detail that changes day by day, every little bit that stays constant. and if you do, the whole thing becomes beautiful. that's why our Father is going to win.
