Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jul 2, 2011
SET FREE
Ray Bakke, the Executive Director of International Urban Associates, tells a great story from World War II.
An airman named MacDonald and a Scottish chaplain bailed out behind German lines, were captured and put into a prison camp, with MacDonald in the American barracks and the chaplain
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jul 2, 2011
Thomas Merton: "The Gospel looks to a future event that is still not fulfilled - the full revelation of the Glory and the Reign of Christ. He reigns already, but his reign is not yet manifest as it will be.
"Yet this brings with it another temptation: the false news of those who have too much of
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Presbyterian/Reformed
IN PHILADELPHIA
My father died in a Philadelphia hospital in 1999. Some weeks before his death, I was able to spend a few days with him. I stayed at the home of some friends in Washington Crossing, just a few miles north of Philadelphia, and each day I would drive into the city.
The first morning
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Jun 30, 2011
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DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE: OUR IRREVOCABLE ACTS
Robert Louis Stevenson, in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," set forth the irrevocable nature of every act we perform. Mr. Jekyll discovered a drug that would transform him into a man devoid of any conscience and therefore able to enjoy any vice or sin.
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 29, 2011
THE MORE LOVING ONE
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it if stars were to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 28, 2011
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DO IT AGAIN
G. K. Chesterton wrote: "Because children have abounding vitality, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged... They always say, 'Do it again,' and the grown-up does it again until he is nearly dead... But perhaps God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 27, 2011
THE MISSION
In the movie The Mission, 16th c. Jesuit monks have been working with the Guarani Indians, bringing them not only the gospel but agriculture and medicine and music. Across the ocean, the Treaty of Madrid transfers the land from Portugal to Spain. The Jesuits are evicted, the Indian
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 25, 2011
PERSECUTION MEANS HOPE
Genuinely persecuted Christians see judgment on their persecutors as a sign of hope. There is a story of Polish slave laborers working in munitions factories for Germany toward the end of WWII being bombed by allied planes. Some were killed, more were wounded. And yet
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 25, 2011
LET US LOVE THEM
Tony Campolo tells about some homeless teenagers from the Philadelphia streets who beat to death a Korean honor student doing graduate work in medicine at the U of PA. His parents came to the U.S. for the trial, and sat silently through his murderers’ entire trial.
At the end,
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Presbyterian/Reformed
THE GOSPEL IS OFFENSIVE
There is something about the gospel that is inherently offensive. I don’t like saying that, and you may not like hearing it. But it is incontestable. The gospel puts some people off.
Take David and Roland, two high school friends of mine. David was what you might call a
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Curry Pikkaart on Jun 22, 2011
WE GET OUR PURPOSE FROM HIM
I have three watches. They had no meaning until I bought them; they get their meaning from me. I assign each one its meaning and value. I put this watch on a shelf as a showpiece; it's my show watch. This watch I wear for informal occasions and when working in the
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 22, 2011
THE BELLS TOLL FOR SOMEONE ELSE
We began the week with the story of the Chicago nightclub fire in which 21 people were killed as they rushed to the exit. The club had already been cited for overcrowding and other safety violations--like not enough doors and windows. What happened was that a
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Presbyterian/Reformed
Contributed by Alison Bucklin on Jun 21, 2011
Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind:
"Openness and the relativism that makes it the only plausible stance in the face of various claims to truth and various ways of life and kinds of human beings is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger. The study of
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Presbyterian/Reformed