"We are travellers…not yet in our native land" – St. Augustine
Have you ever heard a game called “Punch buggy”?
It’s game which typically involves two people. While you’re out and about, the first person who spots a Volkswagen Beatle (a “bug”) gets to punch the other person on the arm and, if it’s blue, gets to do it twice! It’s like a violent version of “Eye Spy”. Horrible, right?!
1 Punch
2 Punches
On October 23rd, Dr Delgado and Roger Lopez spoke here in San Diego for Theology on Tap. The title of their talk was “Healing the Culture: “Bringing reason back into medicine and sexuality”.
Main Talk – Part 1 (Download)
Main Talk – Part 2 (Download)
Q&A (Download)
I wanted to just blog briefly about a passage of scripture which I’ve been thinking a lot about recently, 2 Samuel 24:18-24:
That day Gad came to David and said to him, “Go up and build an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite.”
So David went up to do what the Lord had commanded him. When Araunah saw the king and his men coming toward him, he came and bowed before the king with his face to the ground. “Why have you come, my lord the king?” Araunah asked.
David replied, “I have come to buy your threshing floor and to build an altar to the Lord there, so that he will stop the plague.”
“Take it, my lord the king, and use it as you wish,” Araunah said to David. “Here are oxen for the burnt offering, and you can use the threshing boards and ox yokes for wood to build a fire on the altar. I will give it all to you, Your Majesty, and may the Lord your God accept your sacrifice.”
But the king replied to Araunah, “No, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God that have cost me nothing.” So David paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen.
I few years ago I came across this passage only minutes before I was about to do something I really did not want to do. The part that stuck out to me was that David refused to offer to God the free gifts from Araunah:
“I will not [make a sacrifice that] cost me nothing“
This Scripture passage showed me what makes a sacrifice…a sacrifice. The very nature of a sacrifice is that it costs us something. It reminded me that living a life which gives glory to God sometimes requires us to do what we would rather avoid.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart.” – Psalm 51:7
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about opening doors. I thought it would be worth doing a quick follow-up post… 😉
(Courtesy of HappyPlace.com)
Up until now in the Best of British series, I have spoken exclusively about British comedy shows I associate with my childhood. I’d now like to introduce some of the shows which came along a little later.
Although I contend that British TV has fallen somewhat from the comedic heights of my childhood, there have most definitely been some real gems produced in recent years. Here are some of them…
“The Vicar of Dibley” came onto our TV screens at a particularly turbulent time for the Church of England. Two years prior to the first season, the Church of England had begun ordaining women and this was causing significant issues within the Anglican communion. In true British style, Richard Curtis sought out the comedy in this tense situation and crafted a sit-com about the life of one of these early female vicars in the sleepy village of Dibley. The lead character, Geraldine, was played by the well-known comediane, Dawn French. Although I would suggest that the final seasons were rather sub-par, on the whole, this was a lovely, gentle-natured comedy which took a light-hearted look at parish life from both sides of the pulpit.
I never felt that “My Family” really received the recognition that it deserved. As the title suggests, it’s about a family, the Harper Family. The Dad, Ben, is wonderfully grumpy and feels constantly harangued by his wife and harassed by his children, especially his idiotic son, Nick:
The show lost a lot when Nick’s character left, but I still think those earlier seasons were superb.
There is a saying in Show Business that one should never work with children or animals. The show “Outnumbered” breaks both of these rules since it stars three children who, at times, act like real animals. There is no great story line to the show, it’s simply about the lives of two parents and their three “spirited” children. The kids in this show are a-maz-ing, especially Ramona Marquez who plays little Karen.
Rather than “scripting” the children, the writers of the show give the children broad instructions and then simply turn on the cameras. The result is truly wonderful and if you pay close attention to the grown-ups in the show you can quite often see that they’re having to work very hard to suppress their laughter.
In the clip below the kids are at a wedding, under the patient care of the local vicar…
Jennifer Fulwiler, Atheist to Catholic convert, is getting her own TV show:
It’s a three part show, airing on December 13th, ,20th and January 10th. It’s going to be showing on TimeWarner Channel 97 and Cablevision Channel 30, but it’s also going to be available for streaming online.
Every Sunday in the Liturgy of the Hours Night Prayer we pray the following:
For he will free you from the hunter’s snare,
from the voice of the slanderer.
He will shade you with his wings,
you will hide underneath his wings. – Psalm 90
I recently came across some words of popular Anglican theologian NT Wright which I recall every time I pray this psalm:
He was writing about a passage in St. Matthew’s Gospel where Jesus uses similar imagery:
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing…” – Matthew 23:37-38
Here was his commentary:
“[The image] is of a farmyard fire; the hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and, when the fire has run its course, there will be found a dead hen, scorched and blackened, but with live chicks under her wing. Jesus seemed to be indicating his hope that he would take upon himself the judgement that was hanging over the nation and city“ – NT Wright, The Challenge of Jesus