Fruitful choices

Every day I have the opportunity to choose how I am going to live—this is a great privilege but also a great responsibility. The way of our dreams–the Alpine Path, if you will–is not a leisurely stroll in a shaded wood, or even a pleasant hike up a rolling grade. It is a daily battle. A limiting unto more freedom. A devotion and a discipline, and it will sometimes require a shedding or a pruning or a sundering. It means that I cannot be choice-less in the matter because every day’s fruit is only a result of the choices I have made all along the way, from the time I get up till the time I go to bed.

~Lanier of Lanier's Books in a post about Tasha Tudor.

Prophets

If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church...is to recover from the injuries she suffered, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting. Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will not be one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. - A.W. Tozer

As quoted on Hebrew for Christians.

A false dichotomy:

Dayton's point in this chapter [of Discovering an Evangelical Heritage] is to question the kind of evangelicalism Billy Graham represented in a comment on the Vietnam War in 1973: "God has called me to be a New Testament evangelist, not an Old Testament prophet! While some may interpret an evangelist to be primarily a social reformer or political activist, I do not! An evangelist is a proclaimer of the message of God's love and grace in Jesus Christ and of the necessity of repentance and faith" (8).

From: Ken Schenck, March 21, 2010.

Windstorm

What a night! "Pasadena declares emergency after wind wreaks havoc overnight." Thankfully, the tree by my house did not hit any cars (or the house)!

Tree child

From a letter I wrote to my parents from boarding school when I was in Grade Four, just after my ninth birthday. "Half-term" was a two-day break from school work. Most of the day was spent "at the river" swimming and playing. We were served extra treats and usually shown a film in the evenings. It was the highlight of the school term. (When the school terms were longer, four and half months, we had two half-term breaks.)

(Note: I have edited this slightly to remove spelling errors and to make it slightly easier to read!)

On half-term I got so many sweets. I got 83 ngwee worth of sweets. 66 ngwee was my birthday sweets and 17 ngwee was my half-term sweets. After we got our sweets, we played around or got ready to go down to the river. About 10 o'clock we went down to the river. I had a super time in swimming in the morning! Miss Halls gave us a long, long time to swim! All the time I did dives off the spring board. I did at least fifty dives.

When it was "all out," I quickly got dressed, ate a sweet and asked to climb trees. Soon it was lunch. I was the last one in line because the tree that I was up had so many people and it took such a long time to get down. After lunch I climbed trees again. I climbed them until rest hour. During rest hour I read and did criss-cross puzzles. When rest hour had finished, and I had had my milk and cookies, I climbed trees again. I climbed them until swimming. Again I had lots of fun. All the time I did dives off the spring board. I had so much fun on half-term.

The Family of Man

From The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals , March 19, 1958 (p. 125):

Marvelous books for a few pennies--including The Family of Man for 50 cents. All those fabulous pictures. No refinements and no explanations are necessary!

By chance, I found The Family of Man: The Greatest Photographic Exhibition of All Time- 503 Pictures from 68 Countries book in high school, perhaps (?), and it became my stock wedding gift and for other gift-giving occasions.

Later, I picked up a rather battered copy for myself from a used bookstore. The black-and-white photographs and scattered quotes truly give an unadorned and evocative glimpse of human life and longing that contrasts with the much more constructed and artificial way we (I) live our (my) lives (life) today in Western society.

I am sad that so many of the photos remain just that--pictures on paper. But, still, they beckon....

Ten years

Ten years ago today.

Very compelling thoughts on the significance of that day for the future:

What now after the “world changing” events of 9/11? That day saw horrific tragedy. Yet, there could be a far, far worse tragedy to come, following on its heels. We should really be afraid of letting this awful loss come to naught. [...]

There can be no greater memorial to those who lost their lives than for us to change ours. Charity can be an easy kind of love and get us off the track. In tracing the footsteps of all the firefighters, police, and other heroes, you come face to face with the hard love based on a commitment to place others’ lives ahead of one’s own.

Jules Dervaes, October 2001

To mourn is a lost ‘art’ in the West. [...] Why would we want to waste precious time remembering those “no longer with us”?

It’s all about establishing value. What we mourn is what we value outside ourselves. To ‘cry’ over an extended time will convey appraised worth. We can’t let life become another throwaway commodity.

Jules Dervaes, November 2001

Ten years

It was ten years ago today that I published my first weblog post. Blogging was kind of a big deal back in those days, although not so much any more for me.

Here's a link to that first month of posts as recorded on Archive.org.

Some significant things have happened via the blog, for which I am truly thankful.