do these words embarass you

Do any of these words embarass you

the seat of my pants
wankel rotary engine
rumpty
trousers
moist
pad
napkin
dinky
puss
trammel
navel
anatomy
tutelage

Preaching beyond Speaching

I believe preaching to be a crucial act of the church. That's why preaching needs to be released from the bondage of the speech making act. In reality speaching is quite new, a creation of Enlightenment Christianity in which faith formation was understood as something best handled by the "expert" (aka the pastor).
Speaching sets the story of God in a prefabricated context where it all makes sense from the perspective of the person speaking. The context of others is therefore inconsequential. Speaching also creates a belief that even in the presence of dozens, hundreds, even thousands of other Christians, there are a select few who know God's truth and who get to tell others about God. There is hardly a preacher who wants her hearers to leave with the notion that they must access the truth of God through the preacher. But that is precisely the message speaching perpetuates: The pastor has the authority to speak about God, and you don't. When communities are convinced they are better off with a unified understanding of God that is best articulated by trained presenters, we end up with people who cannot translate what they hear in church to the way they live their lives.

Doug Pagitt, Preaching Re-Imagined: the role of the sermon in communities of faith

Bring it!

It's coming...







...and I can't wait!!

Change

A deep friend of mine made me think of this. And in thinking of him, I thought of myself, and how he has inspired me, and how change is good...

A Jamaican man, Fred, who works at a bank told a story. A few years earlier he had been diagnosed with a terminal disease. After consulting a number of doctors, who all confirmed the diagnosis, he went through what everyone does in that situation. For weeks he denied it. But gradually, with the help of friends, he came to grips with the fact that he was only going to live a few more months. ‘Then something amazing happened,’ he said. ‘I simply stopped doing everything that wasn’t essential, that didn’t matter. I started working on projects with kids that I’d always wanted to do. I stopped arguing with my mother. When someone cut me off in traffic or something happened that would have upset me in the past, I didn’t get upset. I just didn’t have the time to waste on any of that.’ Near the end of this period, Fred began a wonderful new relationship with a woman who thought that he should get more opinions about his condition. He consulted some doctors in the United States and soon after got a phone call saying, ‘We have a different diagnosis.’ The doctor told him he had a rare form of a very curable disease. And then came the part of the story that is unforgettable. Fred said, ‘When I heard this over the telephone, I cried like a baby— because I was afraid my life would go back to the way it used to be.’

Neverland

We don't play enough. That's because there are more pressing things to do, pay bills, cut the grass, make supper, grow up. Too bad. On the other hand some people never get beyond Peter Pan. Too bad. I think we know when we're too serious or too childish and we long for the soothing balance. Where does inspiration come from? Why do we grow out of pretend? Is it more or less mature to believe? To make believe?

"There is no use trying,"
said Alice; "one can't
believe impossible things."
"I dare say you haven't had
much practice," said the Queen.
"When I was your age,
I always did it for half an
hour a day. Why, sometimes
I've believed as many as six
impossible things before
breakfast". (Lewis Carroll)

Doesn't it seem utterly impossible what Christianity claims...what Jesus says is possible. It's a bunch of silliness really. Or is it?

Watched a great movie last night.

What smells?

...ever wonder why there is so much bullshit going on? Maybe this will help.