ascending

jumping off

The Internet Monk on Christless Preaching

"At the moment that preacher stood up, one person in that room needed desperately to hear the hope that is mine in Jesus. Despair stalks me. Satan and life dominating sins war against my soul. Religion, motivation, church, music, the pretense of piety, the rituals of synergistic schemes of salvation- all offer me nothing. Christians have failed me. Institutional religion mocks me. Friends do not know me.

Give me Jesus, give me Jesus, one soul cries.

Can someone sing “In The Cross of Christ I Glory” as I turn my back and walk away from this kind of religion? I’m looking for the one who, when asked for a great life, said sell all you have and come follow me to the cross."

Check out the full article.

My thoughts: This is the kind of metacognition we ought to engage in. Where is the separation of Christ and everything else in your life? Where should you put the scalpel; what is cultural, personal, and then who is Christ and how does He truly relate to you?

For me, theological thought, my cultural ideals of piety, and the importance of friends, while all good in a way, can intermingle with how I act out Christ. I place them in the same pile, forgetting that culture, friends, and theological theories are passive and in ways transient. Christ, however, is unchanging. He is the one constant, God's plan of salvation for those who trust Him. To allow my relationship with Him to be marred by my own conventions instead of allowing those to be purified by Him, is a sin, and I thank God I have His mercy.

Lady Lydia speaks... but what in the world is she saying?

The following was an automatically denied response to an outrageous blog entry by the Lady Lydia.
This is apparently old news, but hey it's new to me.

This is an honest question and petition: Can you imagine Jesus, seriously, walking into a scene of poor women wearing cheap clothes, and sneering? Would He honestly care about their clothing? In His culture, people wore simple robes; utilitarian items, and I'd imagine they would get fairly dirty at times. In fact, I'm certain He would take issue with people flaunting name-brand items, even if it is April Cornell.

If perhaps Jesus' robe got crinkled in the back, and made His butt look big, would you sneer at Him? Or how about if the Virgin Mary's skirt got hiked up on accident? I know my clothes have hiked up on me before. In fact, today my zipper was left down accidentally for a few minutes! Even though I love Christ, would you judge me at such an oversight? Also, I've been a little lazy about the laundry for a couple of weeks, but honestly I've got a lot on my mind, lots of personal and school obligations, friends with issues- you know, the usual. I try to look presentable, but sometimes I just have to throw on the pair of wrinkled jeans with a hole in the pocket, and maybe a tuckable shirt that I don't bother to tuck in. Does this make me less of a Christian? Will I stand before the Judgement Seat of Christ and be held accountable for my scraggly dungarees? I think not. I hope you count this a mature comment, even though it is a critique of your opinions.

Please consider these thoughts.

Peace to you.

As an artist, I also take issue with her statement about brown and dying flower. Something can be dying yet beautiful at the same time dude! Following her reasoning why would anyone ever want to paint Jesus bloodied on the Cross? Eh... limited aesthetics bother me, and I will stop before I begin an unbridled rant about Thomas Kinkade's.

crazy young djs

Okay, I should be able to do this no problem....