Meditation: The Body

"It is by the body that we come into contact with Nature, with our fellowmen, with all their revelations to us.  It is through the body that we receive all the lessons of passion, of suffering, of love, of beauty, of science.  It is through the body that we are both trained outward from ourselves, and driven inward into our deepest selves to find God.  There is glory and might in this vital evanescence, this slow glacierlike flow of clothing and revealing matter, this ever uptossed rainbow of tangible humanity.  It is no less of God's making than the spirit that is clothed therein."

George MacDonald 
from An Anthology of 365 Readings compiled by C.S. Lewis

We're Moving to Mexico!

Dear Mr. President, Senate and House of Representatives:

I'm planning to move my family and extended family (18-20 mouths) into Mexico for my health, and I would like to ask you to assist me.  We're planning to simply walk across the border from the U.S. into Mexico, and we'll need your help to make a few arrangements.  We plan to skip all the legal stuff like visas, passports, immigration quotas and laws.  I'm sure they handle those things the same way you do here.
So, would you mind telling your buddy, President Calderon, that I'm on my way over? Please let him know that I will be expecting the following...

Poetry Collections for Young Ones

All three of these books below are outstanding poetry collections filled with excellent pictures.  We've read these to our children for years now, and the books don't ever seem to get "old".  These have been, along with the Psalms and Proverbs, just right for starting our little ones out into the sea of metaphor and language.
 
1)  Sing a Song of Popcorn
2)  Climb into my Lap: First Poems to Read Together
3)  Poems for Children: A Delightful Collection for Boys and Girls

The Wide, Deep World of Smaller Fellowships

"The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world.  The reason is obvious.  In a large community we can choose our companions.  In a small community our companions are chosen for us."

G.K. Chesterton, excerpt from his book Heretics

Melchizedek was like Jesus

Here’s a helpful tip from your Uncle Corey when discussing Jesus’ divinity and eternality with heretics. Dialogue with them over Hebrews 7:3 where it states that Melchizedek was like the Son of God (Jesus) in that he didn’t have a mother or father, neither did he have a beginning nor an end of life. 

       That always generates from the unbelieving cult member that drunk driver-stalled-on-the-tracks-with-train-coming look...well, at least it has for me on a couple of occasions.  Good fun and an amazing verse.

Meditation: Christian Suffering

"Faith told Moses that affliction and suffering were not real evils. They were the school of God, in which He trains the children of grace for glory; the medicines which are needful to purify our corrupt wills; the furnace which must burn away our dross; the knife which must cut the ties that bind us to the world."

J.C. Ryle, excerpt from his book Holiness

Sniffing Old Books

"Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us."

From Perfumes: The Guide by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez