Grace taught my heart to fear

My new Sure antiperspirant deodorant has an on-off switch.  What on earth for?!  As far as i can tell it is not battery operated, nor in any danger of going off by itself. However, I do rejoice in the feeling of being an environmental terrorist by leaving it on 'stand-by'!

I love and hate stories like this!  (pic from BBC website - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8071865.stm) On the one hand - we're all a bunch of nutters for thinking that this is anything more than human beings reading into the marmite residue whatever we like.  After all, in another time or place this could be Osama Bin Laden, any member of ZZ Top, or a slightly windblown homeless guy from the 60s that no-one has ever heard of.  But it's not the family's fault - they just took a photo and let us make up our minds.  I love stories like this cos they remind me that we're all superstitious and suggestible, and prone to believe anyhting we want to beleive - and the Bible tells us exactly that same thing. But I hate stories like this as well.  Usually some 'Christian' leader from one denomination or other (somehow the Roman Catholics always speak up) is quoted as saying that this is a sign that Jesus is still with us, or that God has not forgotten us, or something l

John Piper writes: "Many pastors are not known for expressing deep emotions. This seems to me especially true in relation to the profoundest theological realities. This is not good, because we ought to experience the deepest emotions about the deepest things. And we ought to speak often, and publicly, about what means most to us, IN A WAY THAT SHOWS ITS VALUE. This... is a plea for deep feelings in worthy forms from God besotted hearts and minds." (Brothers we are not professionals, p149, emphasis mine) He goes on: 'Let there be passion in the pulpit, passion in prayer and passion in conversation.' http://www.desiringgod.org/Store/Books/ByTopic/69/315_Brothers_We_Are_Not_Professionals/

I note from the BBC website ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi /entertainment/8026312.stm  ) that Phillip Pullman appeared in the stage production of His Dark Materials - the play based on his best-selling trilogy. He appeared uncredited as an Oxford academic, and seemingly had great fun, and put in a worthy performance. Is it only me, or is that not a little ironic? Here is a series of books that purport to decry theism and do away with the idea of 'god', and depict 'god' as a helpless old angel, an ultimate deceiver, who vanishes in a gentle puff of wind when his crystal 'sarcophagus' is shattered - his atoms returning the grand scheme of all things. This is a series of books that says that the universe has no author. And yet as the play is staged (and, I don't know, but presume that the play and the books speak with a similar voice) here appears the author, subtly transcending the medium and taking the nature of one of the characters! This sounds awfully famili

One thought has become clearer and clearer in my mind over the last few months, since it was planted there on a quiet Friday afternoon in early 2008.  We become what we worship.   The startling truth of this is writ large in our lives, in the fabric of our communities, the nature of our relationships, and the pages of our philosophy books and editorial columns.  It is not so much that if I look intently at your life for a couple of weeks I will be able to tell you what you believe.  I heard that at school and immediately realised its truth.  But it is far too weak to describe our condition or persuade anyone to actually look at their own lives with a view to seeing what is really there. We become what we worship.   There is a process going on in each and everyone's life.  A hardening, a slow gravitation, a tendency.  It is a process that we are slowly becoming more like our idols.  Whatever it is we place most value on, hold most dearly, and esteem most highly - that becomes our be