Grace taught my heart to fear

A friend of mine was talking to his 11 yr old son and heard that he wanted to stop supporting Man Utd and transfer his allegiance to Man City. My friend's response was 'Not under my roof!' This father was not threatening to throw his son out - he's not that kind of dad. He was simply saying that conversion is inconceivable. And he was serious. As a young girl was returning from a weekend away where she had heard how Jesus had died for her, she was considering that she may turn to Him and become a Christian. As her mum picked her up the first thing she said in the car was "Mum, I want to become a Christian!" A few days later I visited the family and sat on the sofa as her mum related the stotry to me. Her mum's response, with a gentle smile on her face, was to 'let her sleep on it and so forget it.' It wasn't going to happen to her daughter, not under her roof. Are we approaching a time - or has it arrived - that people in general will act

http://www.christian.org.uk/news/kids-author-says-jesus-is-not-god/?e110909 Dear Mr Pullman, It's nice to see you lay your cards on the table. If it were me (and not God) whom you were opposing, I would be not a little scared. You are a formidable enemy, though I am not sure God has much to worry about. You weigh into the age old debate about Jesus' deity with the old news that it was in fact Paul of Tarsus who invented Christianity long after Jesus of Nazareth had popped his clogs at the unfortunately young age of - whatever it was - 33 years old according the legend rubbished by Dan Brown. You describe Paul as, “a literary and imaginative genius, who has had more influence on the world than anybody else, including Jesus. He had this great ability to persuade others and his rhetorical skills have been convincing people for 2,000 years”. As a fellow author, Mr Pullman, you must be familiar with the difficulty of getting readers to believe something is true which was written

Its a shock when you realise the freedom you thought you had is just a beautifully crafted and well furnished cage. In a desperate, and hopefully not final, attempt to get fit i have noticed how I still really enjoy running. However the thing that is preventing me from running further ad stronger and faster is not just my body. Painful knees and a large gut do limit the range a the moment, but the real inhibitor for me at the moment - as I realised this morning - is fear. I am afraid of how running will make me feel - that slightly tight feeling in my throat, the uncomfortability of breathlessness, the potential stitch - I don't like to feel this way - and I have become addicted to feeling comfortable. So I find myself in a very subtle, personally built, and very comfortable cage. I fear the consequences of running long distances and it is preventing me getting to the point where my running is doing me any good. So - how to break out? Here's what I've got so far... 1) k

This is copied from the LICC email by Jason Gardner. Thanks guys Inevitably, the true impact of Michael Jackson’s influence on the world will be measured not in album and video sales, or sold out world tours, but by the number and nature of conspiracy theories that already do, and perhaps always will, surround his demise. 
It is apparently the norm these days for celebrity figures who die before their time to have the events and circumstances surrounding their passing scrutinised not only by pathologists, but also by press pundits and armchair sleuths as well. 

We love a good conspiracy theory: from the second shooter on the grassy knoll in Dallas for JFK's assassination, through to Elvis being alive and well and living in a timeshare in Benidorm with Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison (my own theory). And in an age where information and communication technology have made broadcasters and journalists of us all, those deductions and ruminations now come at a supercharged rate.

I can&#

Apart from the fact that i did not want to put this book down last night (not that i COULDN"T - it's not THAT good) this latest offering from Dan Brown is typical fare - a long and complicated plot involving certain talented individuals, and the potential to destabilise the world with the imminent revelation of ancient secrets. And somehow each time Robert Langdon gets tangled up in the mess just as he is about take a lazy sunday off! (Note to self- avoid contact with Robert Langdon, he attracts more danger than Miss Marple and the residents of Midsomer put together!) This time the secret society at the heart of the story is the Freemasons, whom Brown bends over backwards in an attempt to not offend them and give them a good press. The story begins with certain 'facts' (that may or may not be true 'facts'), the albino monk has become a lean, tattooed insider with a desire to limit human progress and maintain the status quo, and the building at the heart of t

'Now you young twerps want a new name for your generation? Probably not, you just want jobs, right? Well, the media do us all such tremendous favours when they call you Generation x, right? Two clicks from the very end of the alphabet. I herby declare you Generation A, as much at the beginning of a series of astonishing triumphs and failures as Adam and Eve were so long ago.' Kurt Vonnegut. Quoted in Generation A, frontispiece, by Douglas Coupland. More reviews of this book will appear here shortly.