Video: The Cartel

This looks like an important movie.

I believe youth ministry must be involved in the local school.
I believe social justice must be involved in the local school.
Therefore I need to be involved in the local school.
I'm currently filling out the paperwork to become a substitute teacher in my community.
How about you?  What some things you do, or what are some ideas you know about, for how we can serve the local school systems?

Resurrection Meditations (Part 7 of 8)

Resurrection Letters

Meditations on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

by Andrew Peterson

VII. THE HUNGRY TOMB

I want to turn away from this part of the story.

I want to close my eyes on it, partly because my love for you makes it difficult to bear, and
partly because I am ashamed of myself. I’m afraid that I’ll see my own face in the mob,
among the teachers of the law, in Pilate, in the men who beat you. You are despised and
rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men
hide their faces.

But I watch. I watch as you are whipped, mocked, nailed to the cross, and lifted up.
I force myself to watch.

“It is finished,” you say, and then the life and light of men dies.

The mob clears beneath a black, churning sky, as black as the sorrow or terror they feel in
their chests. The Sabbath is coming, and Joseph of Arimathea of all people knows that
no man's body is to hang overnight, especially during Passover. Pilate gives his
permission and Joseph comes trembling to the foot of the cross. There stands the Jewish
leader, his robe whipping in the angry wind, his back bent before your wrecked body,
crooked on the crossbeams. Joseph lays the linen-shrouded flesh and bones of the son of
God in his own tomb just as evening descends and brings with it God's holy day of rest.

We all have tombs that await us, open-mouthed and hungry for our bones, but the author
of life lies there in our stead. You died so that we who come sorry and helpless to the foot
of your cross may rest on the Sabbath knowing that it is not ourselves in our graves, but
you.

That atonement was made would have been enough. But in the riches of your grace and
great power, we rest on the Sabbath knowing that the tomb is not the final word. Great
God, we are overcome with joy and thanksgiving and all manner of gladness that
the tomb is not the end of the story.

Just wait, you say. You will see my wonders.

(thanks)

"Can You Picture That"

It's Good Friday and all day I've been thinking about the cross.  From brushing my teeth, to a round of frisbee golf, through dinner and while texting with friends before heading off to bed.  This video is a great cumulation  to a day of meditation.

Good Friday 2009 - Ending from buckheadchurch on Vimeo.

Via loswhit's blog from Buckhead Church last year....wow.

Resurrection Meditations (Part 6 of 8)

Resurrection Letters

Meditations on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

by Andrew Peterson

VI. FRIENDS OF GOD

There in the torchlight, beads of blood-like sweat still on your brow, you answer Judas's greeting by calling him “friend.”

“Friend, do what you came for.”

Let's dispose of the charade, you said. And you remind us gently that though his would become perhaps the most dishonored name in history, he was your friend. You still called him friend. And perhaps his hearing that one word was the worst punishment of all for Judas, who considered friendship with you worth nothing more than a bag of change.

No one took your life from you—not Judas, not the Sanhedrin, not Pilate, and not the Jews. Not even me. You laid it down of your own accord. You had the authority to lay it down, and the authority to take it up again.

Let us remember, Lord Jesus, that what you did that Friday was a declaration of your friendship with us, who so often betray you with kisses of our own. Our sin can shock even ourselves, and we buckle beneath the weight of our shame. But you sit us on the chair, wrap a towel around your waist, and kneel before us. We protest, but you hush us and clean our gnarled feet. You bear the whip and the thorns and the naked humiliation of the cross to reconcile us to yourself, to end the enmity between God and man, so that

we betrayers might be declared friends of God—yes, even children of God.

There is no greater love.

(thanks)

Guam, Tipping Over?

I think this congressman, Rep. Hank Johnson, is suggesting that the island of Guam might actually "tip over and capsize".

He's website responds to the statement by saying:

"The subtle humor of this obviously metaphorical reference to a ship capsizing illustrated my concern about the impact of the planned military buildup on this small tropical island."

 I don't really see the congressman trying to be humorous, but maybe he's just got a really really dry humor.  I also like how the Admiral tries to reply to the absurd question.

Resurrection Meditations (Part 5 of 8)

Resurrection Letters

Meditations on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

by Andrew Peterson

V. LOVE YOUR ENEMIES

Judas.

Doomed to be the one who would betray the son of God, misguided, obsessed with money, wracked with a destructive, cowardly shame that left him swinging from a rope with his neck stretched and his head cocked. You knew it would be him. The night you broke the bread, your eyes met his, and he knew that you knew. Judas went and betrayed his rabbi. It would've been a dastardly thing had you been an ordinary man, and you were anything but ordinary.

Judas saw the wonders you did, the authority with which you taught, and heard you declare yourself the son of God more than once.  He had no excuse. It was clear to those in your company that you were made of a

goodness that rendered betrayal unthinkable.

But Judas, whatever his reasons, did the unthinkable.

And he did it with such irony. With a kiss. You had washed his feet only hours ago. I wonder what went through his mind as he sat there uncomfortable and appalled at your outrageous demonstration of love and service?

You knew he would betray you. You knew he was the guilty one, and still you took his filthy feet in your hands and washed them in the basin. You patted them dry with the towel around your waist.

Love your enemies, you had told them. And, kneeling before the betrayer, you showed them how.

(thanks)

Resurrection Meditations (Part 4 of 8)

Resurrection Letters

Meditations on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

by Andrew Peterson

IV. REMEMBRANCE

Remember, you told them.

With a loaf of tough bread and a cup of grape wine, you gave us all the gift of remembrance. You know how fallible our memories are, how prone we are to rationalize the spectacular and to sensationalize the mundane, and so you set in motion a ritual that would tether our fancies to earth and history and truth.

You broke the bread, and you thanked the Father for it; the one whose word lit the galaxies gave thanks for bread. You called it your body, and the apostles stared at you dumbfounded for a moment before they ate of it.

You took the cup and offered it to them, and you told them it was the blood of a new covenant, poured out for many. With the bits of bread still in their teeth and crumbs in their beards they looked at one another with questions on their faces.

Around went the cup and the apostles drank.

You told them it was for remembering, but what they were to remember hadn't yet happened and so it would be at least another week before they began to understand what you were telling them. I'm sure they wanted to know what you were talking about, but something in the look on your face stayed their tongues.

It's been two thousand years now, more or less. We kneel with contrite hearts and accept the gift of remembrance. We call it communion.

We accept the gift of your flesh and blood, and we offer you only our helplessness. We bask in mercy and rise from the table blessed, full of joy, because we have remembered.

Because we have been remembered.

(thanks)

Resurrection Meditations (Part 3 of 8)

Resurrection Letters

Meditations on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

by Andrew Peterson

III. THE FIG TREE

You woke in the morning and walked along with your friends. Peter saw the fig tree you had cursed the day before, now withered and dead. While you slept, the life hissed out of the leaves, the branches clenched like knuckles, the roots curled up like the legs of a dead spider. The tree bore no fruit because it wasn't the season for fruit, and yet you cursed it.

Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm that fig tree and you'll approach me when I'm faithless and wayward and you'll banish the life from me. Or maybe you were just cross that the world you made didn't recognize you, even down to the trees themselves. Satan had so twisted the good world you made that the tree that might’ve blossomed at its maker's approach merely languished in the heat, as dead and unresponsive to your presence as I so often am.

Whatever the tree's significance, your power was plain to the disciples that morning, as it is to me now. You drew their eyes away from the fig tree to remind them about faith and forgiveness, and if they were better able to hear you by the death of the tree, then that too is fruit.

And maybe the story of the withered tree is not to make me afraid, but to show me you were hungry, and you were human. If you weren't human, then all that follows is farce.

(thanks)

Resurrection Meditations (Part 2 of 8)

Resurrection Letters

Meditations on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

by Andrew Peterson

II. THE SHEPHERD KING

You steer the donkey through the gates of Jerusalem. Centuries before, in this same city, King David wrote his songs and sang your praises. You think of the timbre of his voice, the earnest heart, the long nights on the roof of the palace when the great king remembered how to be a shepherd boy again, alone in the dark pasture but for the sheep in his keeping and the quiet stars.

In your mind you can see him:

King David, barefoot on the airy roof, sitting on the edge of a kingly chair, his harp like a woman in his arms, his mind bending heavenward as he prays with that boyish frankness you delighted in.

Would even David have known what you came to do? If David had been alive on the day of your coming, would he have known the kingdom you were bringing would be of a holy matter, stronger than stone and sharper than steel?

Even David would have been wrong. No man can fathom your ways. No mind could've alone foreseen the Kingdom as you would make it.

(thanks)

Teen Blogging

Are you encouraging teens to blog?
I find my blogging to be therapeutic and research is showing its benefits.
Don't just help them start one, but continue to interact with them through their blogs.

Resurrection Meditations (Part 1 of 8)

Resurrection Letters

Meditations on the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ

by Andrew Peterson

I. THE TRIUMPHAL ENTRY

Lord, forgive us.

We welcome you in because we think you'll give us what we want. We act as if our true motives are hidden from you—you who made the world with a word. We spread our coats and wave our hands and cry “Save us!” and you ride with your back straight and your face drawn, accepting our hosannas because you know that even if the heart is false the words are true, and for now, that is enough.

You come in the name of the Lord. Son of David, you come to save us. You come to save a fickle people, who one minute cry for help and the next cry for blood, and it is both help and blood that you give us.

The sun shines hot on the city gate, and you feel the air move with the palm branches.  You hear the hearts pumping in their chests. Their mouths cry “save us” while their hearts cry “give us what we want.” But because you are God you hear even deeper in the spirits of men and women and even children the silence of our profound loneliness. You hear the trickle of need we scarcely know ourselves.

You come to us though you know we're praying to you for the wrong reasons, singing to you without the faintest notion of how powerful and just and holy you really are.  We don’t even realize the danger we’re in, crying for salvation from Caesar when the Devil himself is battering the door—crying like a baby for its bottle when a wolf is loose in the nursery.

And yet, you come.

You set your iron gaze on Jerusalem, and because the Father wants you to, you come.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

(thanks)

Song Stuck in My Head: You've Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finger

Beth Rowley - You've Got Me Wrapped Around Your Little Finer
From the movie An Education.
Have you seen this film.  It was really good.  Both Carey Mulligan and Alfred Molina are really good.  The art direction is visual candy; the movie is set in a London suburb in the 1960s.  And the script was written by Nick Hornsby; that alone should spur you two watch.

Foolish Silence

What a crazy family.  There has to be more to the story than the reporter was willing to report.  I'm going out on a limb to say that this family is doing something they probably shouldn't doing.
It reminds me of the people who are worried about the governments ability to ease-drop on our phone calls, e-mails, blogs, or even our tweets.  These are the same people that are worried about Google keep logs of everything we ever search.  Sure I get right to privacy, but personally I'm attempting to live without anything to hide.  I figure if someone wants to listen in, well, "welcome to the show!"
Certainly I don't think I'd ever let my paranoia force me to live silent conversations for 11 years.  That's just ridiculous.

QVC, It's a Dirty Job

The Mental Floss Blog is a great blog full of nonsensical information.  Meaning it's perfect for me.
Recently they posted some very interesting videos of Mike Rowe, you know of Dirty Jobs fame, in a previous dirty job...QVC!  And while I could just send you to their website, I figured it would be easier for you to just put the videos here (because I'm just that kinda blogger).
If you're like me, you're probably asking yourself "why would I wanna watch youtube clips of  QVC".  Well the answer is because Rowe is actually really funny.
Enjoy.

A Year of Giving

I just started reading an incredible blog.  Have you heard about it?  

The blog is by an unemployed man from Washington D.C. who is giving away $10 a day.  He then writes about that person.  

Check it out.

What a classy concept for a blog.  Actually using for the betterment of someone else.  

I just talk about me.  Well at least I promote quality blogs.

Maybe I'll give out $10 today

Free Download: Vicky Beeching

Vicky Beeching is giving away a really good song, Deliverer, from her new album Eternity Invades.
Click HERE to get it.
The album comes out in 11 days.  From the sound of this song, I think it'll be worth picking up.

Pooh vs. Alien

Two classic characters I would never think to put together: Winnie the Pooh and the Alien.  But sure enough someone did.  That's a simple explanation of this website, but certainly the description is not enough.  Enjoy.

Song Stuck in My Head: In The Sun

She & Him - In The Sun

Isn't Zooey adorable?  And I really dig her and M. Ward's music.  I just picked up the new album, Volume Two, and like their first I find it completely enjoyable.  And I heard somewhere on NPR that they do have plans to continue on with Volume Three...yay! 

Buy Yarn

Are you in need of some yarn?  I know right, what a silly question?  Who doesn't?

My friend Talia spins her own.  Usually she uses it to make scarfs and hats and gloves and others stuff.  But lucky for you, who is in need of some yarn, you can now purchase some of Talia's yarn and make scarfs and hats and mittens and such.  Buy it HERE.

I should also probably take a sentence to congratulate Talia on her recent engagement.  I mean it's kinda cliche to travel to New Zealand and get engaged, but good for her.  She always wanted a beard in her life.

Well done, Talia.

Movie Preview of the Day:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

I'd watch this movie.  I love a good zombie flick.  And when a friend forced me to watch Pride and Prejudice I was praying for something like this throughout the whole movie.