_awakening

The Things of God.

I had lunch with one of best friends today. It seems that whenever we get together something comes from the discussion that is good for my soul. Over lunch our discussion veering into things of faith and life. He made the comment that he was trying to explore what it meant to live in the present, being led into the things that God is involved in rather than being led by the things God is not in.

This got me thinking. Sometimes I find it disturbing to be around some kind of Christians, the ones who easily label everything that God is not in. It seems that they live their lives in some kind of "sin avoidance" mode, trying to sniff out everything that is not of God and making sure that everyone around them knows exactly what those things and, often times, who those people are.

What if we spent as much energy finding the things God is moving in? What if we sough to have the eyes of God, not in order to label and identify the "other," but to passionately seek to be about the things God is inviting us to?

Something like that could change the world.

Hhhmmm.

While perusing some of the blogs I read regularly, I came across this. It probably does not come as too big a surprise, but I was taken back a bit by this statement of LIberty University's "distinctives":

"An uncompromising doctrinal statement, based upon an inerrant Bible, a Christian worldview beginning with belief in biblical Creationism, an eschatological belief in the pre-millennial, pre-tribulational coming of Christ for all of His Church, dedication to world evangelization, an absolute repudiation of “political correctness,” a strong commitment to political conservatism, total rejection of socialism, and firm support for America’s economic system of free enterprise."

Is it just me, or are there just a few things that seem very, very out of place in that list?

[HT: Michael Bird]

Oh How I Love Thee...

Got this sent to me. Do you think they are trying to tell me something? Any way, this was too good not to pass along...

Some Recent Pics.

Here are a few pics from last weekend's Cats games against the Anaheim Aces. We ended up splitting the double header.

Quote of the Day.

Peter Enns touches on something essential:

But if intention to remain “true” to a “tradition” (which already assumes its non-growth) drives an academic assessment of real evidence (most of which was wholly unavailable when the tradition’s trajectories were set), one runs the risk of adjusting evidence to what one already “knows” to be true.  We do not tolerate such sloppy thinking in any other area of human discourse, but when it comes to theological discourse in some circles, it seems to be the preferred method of interaction. When one’s position is by definition unfalsifiable, any meaningful exchange of ideas functionally ceases. Any tradition that aims to promote truth rather than obscure it must be eager to be open to critical evaluation.

You can read the rest of his blog post here.

[HT: Christopher Heard]

Tonight.

Yes indeed, Megan and I are heading out to the Honda Center for Fleetwood Mac tonight. Originally Jamie was going to go, but she got scheduled tonight at Montage [bummer]. So we decided that this would be a great date night with my oldest daughter, Megan. She really knows nothing about Fleetwood Mac, but was willing to tag along with Dad for the evening. I am so looking forward to getting some time with Megan. Should be a fun night. The Rumors album got constant air time when I was 10 years old. [I think I even had it on 8-track... yikes!]

Voices.

Just as most quests for the historical Jesus have been christology in historical disguise, so too most treatments of Jesus and the Law are simply works of Christian morality and ethics wearing a yarmulke.

[John P. Meier]

[HT: Jim West]

Coldplay Download.

Coldplay's latest, a collection of live recordings entitled Left Right Left Right Left, is a free download on their site. [Click on the image to see the track list.]

Thanks to Andrew for the heads up. 

Mother's Day Baseball.

Today we spent a sun filled Mother's Day afternoon at the Angels-Royals game. I was gifted tickets from Young's Market, one of our distributors at the wine store, and yeah.. the seats were pretty sweet. The are in section 123, next to the Diamond Club seats, in the second row. The sweet thing about these seats is that you can heckle the visiting team's on deck batter... and he hears you! We got there early so Josh and a friend of his could get autographs. Josh got Joe Saunders to sign a ball for him. Joe is Josh's favorite Angel pitcher, being that he's a lefty as well. Needless to say Josh was stoked.

Anyway, it was a great come from behind win for the Angels, who have won 7 of their last 8 games - and this with three starting pitchers on the DL. [When they come back, watch out rest of the AL West...]

THE play of the game, which everyone was talking about [and has been all over SportsCenter and the MLB Network] was Torii Hunter's robbery of Miguel Olivo's apparent game-tying homerun in the top of the ninth. The minute it came off the bat, everyone in the ball park thought it was out, except for one guy - Torii Hunter. It was perhaps the best center field leaping catch I have ever seen. [Watch the clip and you'll see what I mean.]

As a side note, Torii Hunter has been blogging this whole season and has become quite the prolific writer. He even posted something after the game about "the catch." It's been fun to follow his thoughts on the season thus far.