Volf on giving.

"It will not help much if we simply remind ourselves: God gives to the ungrateful, and so should we. But it will help if we remember that it's God who gives when we give. For then we need to deflect graditude that comes to us anyway. We are not its proper addressees. God is. And if we are convinced that gratitude doesn't properly belong to us, then ingratitude doesn't touch us. We are not disrespected by ingratitude; our pride is not injured. The ingratitude of recipients wrongs not us but the gift-giving God - the God whose goodness 'gladly loses its good deed on the unthankful'(Luther). And so we continue to give, even to the ungrateful."

--From 'Free of Charge' by Miroslav Volf.

A lesson I'm learning. Profound.

It's the end of the world as we know it...

I am hugely indebted to REM for the title. They make good music, I enjoy it.

So when I find some time I'm going to write down my thoughts on the End Times. But for now I'm afraid it is only going to be disjointed ideas mixed with an apology.

I've not posted in a good while, sorry about that. It's not that I don't have much to say, it may be that I have too much to say.

Check this out for a review of the new book by Joel Osteen...Life coach extraordinaire. He doesn't attribute that title to himself...but I disagree with the title he does attribute to himself, so I've come up with this one. I'm impressed that the reviewer has restained his obviously scathing opinions...click here.

I also think that more people should be willing to die.

I say this after looking a little at Martin Luther. Who at one point was intensly aware that he was probably travelling to his death, yet felt so profoundly about what he believed in regards to justification by faith and the foolishness of indulgences, that he was prepared to face death, rather than recant.

That challenged me.

Finally, having new people around and getting to know them has been a true joy.