Johnny Brooks in Kenya

Quote of the Week

The life of faith is a daily exploration of the constant and countless ways in which God's grace and love are experienced.

-Eugene Peterson

Quote of the Week

Confession of faith is not to be confused with professing a religion. Such profession uses the confession as propaganda and ammunition against the Godless. The confession of faith belongs rather to the "Discipline of the Secret" in the Christian gathering of those who believe. Nowhere else is it tenable...

The primary confession of the Christan before the world is the deed which interprets itself. If this deed is to have become a force, then the world will long to confess the Word. This is not the same as loudly shrieking out propaganda. This Word must be preserved as the most sacred possession of the community. This is a matter between God and the community, not between the community and the world. It is a word of recognition between friends, not a word to use against enemies. This attitude was first learned at baptism. The deed alone is our confession of faith before the world

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Quote of the Week

In every interaction I can be the voice of Jesus in the world--the voice of the Holy Spirit, the voice of advocacy--or I can be the voice of Satan in the world, the voice of accusation. One voice leads toward peace, the other voice leads toward violence.

Richard Beck

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2012/06/theology-and-peace-part-2-satan-versus.html

 

Tonight’s Table Talk

While sitting at the dinner table this evening, Johnny was talking about Africans who visit the USA and what they find fascinating upon their first few weeks there.

He mentioned how some are fascinated by automatic doors.

Butterfly:  <eyes wide with excitement> What are automatic doors?!

Johnny: Doors that open by themselves.

Butterfly: Oh you mean like in the MOVIES!

 

Yup, my kids are Africans. Butterfly was just 1 year old when we moved to Kenya. We don’t travel so she has a LOT to learn about the world beyond these borders.

~Kate

Quote of the Week

I was walking by the younger girls bedroom the other day and overheard a converstion about pastors and bishops. I was curious what they would say about those types, and popped my head in. I got something like this as a response from Butterfly (our 8 year old daughter:)

"We need the bishops. They heat the water for the bathtubs."

After a few minutes I still have no idea why she needed bishops to heat her bathwater.

Quote of the Week

  So rather than look at parables straight on we sometimes only discover the meaning they contain for us by closing one eye and tilting our heads and looking at them sideways.  So while it's tempting to look straight on and see the story of the persistent widow as a self-help technique by which we can get all the cash and prizes we want out of God's divine vending machine if we just kind of bug God to death through ceaseless prayer, when it comes down to it, we know better. And when we find ourselves saying something is a “answer to our prayer” we might do well to ask what exactly, is an answered prayer? Do we only think God answers by giving us what we ask for?  We know that just praying hard enough or righteously enough doesn't get us what we want. We know better because even in the midst of prayer we have seen cancer be defeated and we have seen cancer win. We've seen the powerful exploit the weak and we've seen the weak rise up. We've seen teenagers who flourish and we've seen the sullen reality of depression steal the joy of youth.

 

From the blog Sarcastic Lutheran

http://sarcasticlutheran.typepad.com/sarcastic_lutheran/2010/10/sermon-on-prayer-and-the-persistant-widow.html

Quote of the Week

“The improved American highway system isolated the American-in-transit. On his speedway he had no contact with the towns which he by-passed. If he stopped for food or gas, he was served no local fare or local fuel, but had one of Howard Johnson's nationally branded ice cream flavors, and so many gallons of Exxon. This vast ocean of superhighways was nearly as free of culture as the sea traversed by the Mayflower Pilgrims.”

Daniel J. Boorstin

Quote of the Week

Burning someone's holy book to prove you have a point, proves you don't
have much of a point to prove. At the same time it is completely
twisted to complain about someone burning your holy book while you
advocate killing people who don't embrace your religion. I'm pretty sure God is more sick of religion than the rest of us are.

Wayne Jacobsen

Quote of the week

“If you put mustard on your ugali, it tastes like a corn dog!” realized Kate.

“Butterfly, what’s a corn dog?” inquired Johnny.

Butterfly, our daughter age 7,  replied,  “I don’t know.”

Quote of the Week

"Prayer is largely just being silent: holding it instead of even talking it through; offering it instead of fixing it by words and ideas; loving it as it is instead of understanding it fully.

That may be impractical, but the way of faith is not the way of efficiency. Much is a matter of listening and waiting, and enjoying the expansiveness that comes from such willingness to hold. It is like carrying and growing a baby: all women do is wait and trust, and hopefully eat good food, and the baby is born."

Richard Rohr