To kick off the 91.25 Days of Summer, I bought a straw hat so natty I had 50-year-old women flirting with me in the store!
Legendary Wall Street investor Bernard Baruch advised we buy off-season. But I’m feeling blessed, and God wants me to have this hat. Now. To be content with such a thing! I love summer, as it’s from God.
My boss admonished me take a real vacation because we’re on summer calendar at work. So I will. This summer. And I’m wearing the new hat.
He was the son of a South Buffalo sanitation worker, a lawyer, aide-de-camp to powerful men, an executive and a journalist. In this day of increasing distrust of mainstream media, he had credibility. He was tough minded but fair minded as well. His style was disarming and more than a few politicians I am sure made the error in judgment to underestimate him.
On election night he explained on a dry-erase memo board the Byzantine electoral college plurality system state-by-state like a sportscaster at the Super Bowl and everyone understood. He had a homespun and unpretentious way about him he probably got from his father, “Big Russ.”
In Big Russ and Me Russert relates a story where he wanted to buy his father a new car — a Mercedes, Cadillac, Lexus — anything his father wanted. And Big Russ said he wanted just a much more modest Ford Crown Victoria basically because anything more would be … well … just not Russert!
Read The New York Times obituary here.
As alluded to on these pages previously, the Evangelical Church may not be that cultural, social and political monolith many even within the Church (and certainly most without) might perceive it to be.
Look for An Evangelical Manifesto: The Washington Declaration of Identity and Public Commitment to be formally released on May 7th.
There’s lots of commentaries out there already (a draft has apparently been released), but here’s a summary of what the document is all about and who’s behind it.
Read it if you can. I might have to wait until after mid-May semester finals to even touch it, but I’ll be sure to opine and generate discussion on the whole matter.
From the anointed and eminently practical Neil Anderson:
1. Why should I say I can’t when the Bible says I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength (Philippians 4:13)?
2. Why should I lack when I know that God shall supply all my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19)?
3. Why should I fear when the Bible says God has not given me a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7)?
4. Why should I lack faith to fulfill my calling knowing that God as allotted to me a measure of faith (Romans 12:3)?
5. Why should I be weak when the Bible says that the Lord is the strength of my life and that I will display strength and take action because I know God (Psalm 27:1; Daniel 11:32)?
6. Why should I allow Satan supremacy over my life when He that is in me is greater than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4)?
7. Why should I accept defeat when the Bible says that God always leads me in triumph (2 Corinthians 2:14)?
8. Why should I lack wisdom when Christ became wisdom to me from God and God gives wisdom to me generously when I ask Him for it (1 Corinthians 1:30; James 1:5)?
9. Why should I be depressed when I can recall to mind God’s lovingkindness, compassion, and faithfulness and have hope (Lamentations 3:21-23)?
10. Why should I worry and fret when I can cast all my anxiety on Christ who cares for me (1 Peter 5:7)?
11. Why should I ever be in bondage knowing that there is liberty where the Spirit of the Lord is (2 Corinthians 3:17)?
12. Why should I feel condemned when the Bible says I am not condemned because I am in Christ (Romans 8:1)?
13. Why should I feel alone when Jesus said He is with me always and He will never leave me nor forsake me (Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5)?
14. Why should I feel accursed or that I am the victim of bad luck when the Bible says that Christ redeemed me from the curse of the law that I might receive His Spirit (Galatians 3:13-14)?
15. Why should I be discontented when I, like Paul, can learn to be content in all my circumstances (Philippians 4:11)?
16. Why should I feel worthless when Christ became sin on my behalf that I might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21)?
17. Why should I have a persecution complex knowing that nobody can be against me when God is for me (Romans 8:31)?
18. Why should I be confused when God is the author of peace and He gives me knowledge through His indwelling Spirit (1 Corinthians 14:33; 2:12)?
19. Why should I feel like a failure when I am a conqueror in all things through Christ (Romans 8:37)?
20. Why should I let the pressures of life bother me when I can take courage knowing that Jesus has overcome the world and its tribulations (John 16:33)?
Mark Beeson has many gifts, including an amazing ability to appreciate God’s creation — in all its beauty and complexity. And not in some new age, pantheistic way, either. Read his commentaries and deep inspiration and insight.
Dr. Beeson is also a very good photographer and scientifically inclined with his precise taxonomy. Check out his site and some of the awesome pics as well.
He was Moses, he was Ben-Hur and he was Michelangelo. He also had principles and he lived them out, and only mean-spirited and thoughtless Hollywood liberal types hated him.
Read his obit here.
Molly Worthen writes in Christianity Today on a different kind of retreat, where skeptical inquiry and rigor of intellect need not be per se inimical to seeking God or following Jesus.
Some go to the Swiss Alps commune L’Abri Fellowship for a break from North American evangelical culture, to debate presuppositionalism or to dry out from all that postmodern critique of objectivity we’ve engaged in after service at our mega-church espresso bar.
Tonight I’ll be at Kenmore Alliance Church .
Following some live praise and worship music at 7 p.m., I’ll have the pleasure and privilege of introducing the guest speaker, our fellow traveler and sister in the Lord — Nancy C. from New York City.
“Nano” has a great testimony, solid recovery and a close walk with the Lord. She is an inspiration and encouragement to all — especially to women in recovery.
Afterward, we’ll klatch over some coffee and break off into gender-specific share groups.
Event Details: http://kenmorealliance.com/256106.ihtml.
See you there!
Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His.
And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings;
He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding.
He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him. Daniel 2:20-22
Ultimately, it was likely more a perfectionist streak than raw lust that drove Eliot Spitzer’s unraveling (and boy was he wound up tight).
The hard-charging governor with the near-perfect SAT score who could never please his father was brought down by some hyper-technical police-state laws and regulations that Spitzer himself advocated for (and surely the type he would have used against his enemies).
I wonder if this for Eliot Spitzer was self-sabotage to a degree, as Spitzer being on the “Politically Exposed Person” list must have surely known the risks of being flagged for transferring monies as he did.
Eliot Spitzer has classic symptoms of sex addiction, and I pray for him and his family.
I get from his composite profile from the media coverage over the past week or so that no one will punish Eliot Spitzer harder than Eliot Spitzer. Come Monday, he’ll be yesterday’s news when this journey for him ends and the Empire State will have a new governor, a most unlikely of stand-ins, David Paterson.
The whole affair has a somewhat amateurish tone to it, as the U.S Attorney’s Complaint against the escort service defendants reveals. The wiretap transcripts and hokey nature of how “Client-9″ (at paragraphs 73-85) arranged the travel with the grifter-like players of the escort service indicates this is hardly sophisticated or high class when culled down to the basics.
Ashley Alexandra Dupre is just another lost girl, and needs redemption and healing just as badly as Eliot Spitzer does.
Take a look at ex-sex worker Shelley Lubben’s site and compare her testimony and insights to the life of Ashley.
Men who damage boys who become men who damage women who turn and damage men who damage other women …. A vicious cycle and a curse.
Both Eliot Spitzer and Ashley Dupre need some serious deliverance and healing.
Another urban warrior with a testimony, the heart of the evangelist and the gift of mercy is Joanne Lorenzo, Director of the Magdalene Project, a Niagara Falls and Buffalo, New York ministry to women caught up in prostitution, drugs and other bondage.
This problem, too, is fundamentally spiritual — not economic or political or even environmental.
Pray for Joanne and her team and watch the Magdalene Project grow into the Magdalene House - God willing.
This Easter she’ll be passing out gift bags of toiletries when she visits the county jail, drug rehabs and goes out on the streets. Contact me if you want to help. The Magdalene Project is a §501(c)(3) non-profit ministry.
