Cell phone
Just what form the future telephone will take is, of course, pure speculation. Here is my prophecy:
In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent, and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk. Who knows but what it may actually translate from one language to another?
Mark Sullivan 1953
Free fallin’
We are, as author Jonathan Dodson writes, living in a “state of existential vertigo”; as the late, great Tom Petty put it, we’re free, free fallin’.
Moral life
If the moral life is like learning to play an instrument, creative artistry built upon a foundation of technical skill, your early lessons are going to be rote and rudimentary. It’s only later, with advancing skill, where you’ll be able to preform and create in beautiful ways
Richard Beck
Unseen
Merle Haggard says, country music is “about those things we believe in but can’t see, like dreams and songs”–
It’s telling us that there is in front of us a kind of rational world, in which one and one always equals two, but that the thing that compels us forward as human beings, is that we look for one and one equaling three. We find that in our faith. We find that in our art. We find that in our love of each other.
Ken Burns
Christianity
Christianity is not a religion that allows us to make ourselves acceptable to God. If we believe we have become acceptable to him, we have missed him. Instead, Christianity is a relationship with a God whose heart is drawn towards the sinful, the broken, the outcast and the excluded. God sides with sinners and eats with them, warning those of us who are religious that, by declaring ourselves well, we stand in danger of not hearing the voice of our Creator calling us to himself.
Michael Spencer
Sin
Sin is more than making a mistake or “missing the mark.” Sin is a slavery that penetrates to the deepest recesses of our being.
Richard Beck
Truth
Truth has a side. These days everybody wants to be on the right side of history. No one seems to care too much about being on the right side of the truth.
J D Walt
Cynicism
…cynicism is simply too easy and smirking is childish. Neither allow for the deeper truths of joy and beauty
Stephen Kamm
Encountering people
Do the people you encounter this day feel safe, seen, and loved by you? Not just and only our best friends during an intimate chat over coffee, but complete strangers whom we bump into the rough and tumble of the day in our hurry, distraction, and stress. Do those people, the mass of strangers, receive from you the beautiful gesture?
Richard Beck
Front Porch View
As the years have gone by, my front porch has been a window into the lives of neighbor and pedestrian. When we moved in 13 years ago our street was a dead end, walkers exceeded vehicle traffic. Development changed the street to a thoroughfare, a blessing and a curse. Thankful for more pedestrians, increased vehicle traffic has become a bane, speed and noise abound. A front porch provides opportunity to observe and understand rhythms of the neighborhood. Seminarians and residents of nearby apartments and locals walking past, have shared their stories. I watched as some shed pounds and others found them. Vehicles passing by, each with their unique voice, are hard evidence of economic inequality. Deprived of cloistered confines, I have a deeper love for neighbor and community.
Listen for the Week – Just Keep On Dancing
Still on the journey.