by
Chet
4. May 2010 07:28
Does the journey from boyhoood to manhood need to be recognized? Or will it just happen? Do we, as fathers, brothers, mentors, and sons ourselves, need to usher boys into the life of a man?
That's the question that Raising a Modern Day Knight seeks to answer, both in concept and in deed. I'm almost done with the book, actually, but the chapter I read this morning titled "Commemorating a Transcendent Cause" really connected with me. The previous several chapters had outlined several ideas for ceremoneously bringing young men into the world of men. The point wasn't that you have to grab them on their 18th birthday or their college graduation - the point was, they need to be grabbed. Whether it's a lonely walk through the woods that is interupted by significant men in the boy's life, or a steak dinner with a father and his comrades sharing their own journeys, boys need to be welcomed into this world. It will not happen accidently. It will not happen on it's own, unless you really, real...
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by
Chet
29. March 2010 10:30
"Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, I can say with complete truthfulness that everything I have learned in my seventy-five years in this world, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness, whether pursued or attained. In other words, if it ever were to be possible to eliminate affliction from our earthly existence by means of some drug or other medical mumbo jumbo... the result would not be to make life delectable, but to make it too banal and trivial to be endurable. This, of course, is what the Cross signifies. And it is the Cross, more than anything else, that has called me inexorably to Christ."
- Malcolm Muggerridge, A Twentieth Century Testimony
I'm reading a book by Eugene H. Peterson (translator of The Message) titled Run With the Horses right now... I don't know if it's int...
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by
Chet
5. March 2010 07:57
We come into the world with a longing to be known and a deep-seated fear that we aren’t what we should be. We are set up for a crisis of identity. And then, says Frederick Buechner, the world goes to work:Starting with the rather too pretty young woman and the charming but rather unstable young man, who together know no more about being parents than they do the far side of the moon, the world sets in to making us what the world would like us to be, and because we have to survive after all, we try to make ourselves into something that we hope the world will like better than it apparently did the selves we originally were. That is the story of all our lives, needless to say, and in the process of living out that story, the original, shimmering self gets buried so deep that most of us hardly end up living out of it at all. Instead, we live out all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world’s weather. (Telling Secret...
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by
Chet
13. February 2010 22:11
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I gave a devotional / testimony type of thing at a Valentines Banquet tonight with some friends & family from church... along with a couple hecklers in the crowd. Wanted to get it jotted down in my blog so I can come back to it later...
When I volunteered to share a devotional tonight, I had one of those strange feelings where you know exactly what you want to share, but have absolutely no idea how you’re going to get it out of your heart, up your throat, and out of your mouth. Ever been there? In fact, as I thought about that, I realized I’m in that situation quite often, particularly, it seems, in my marriage. I have something great to say, to really inspire and encourage my wife, or just make her day, and how does it come out? Not at all as in...
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by
Chet
14. October 2009 08:26
I'm reading a book by Andy Stanley called Visioneering. Excellent book about not just leadership, but finding out who God made you to be, and what He made you to do, and how to get from "here" to "there." Right now I'm reading all about that "wait and pray" phase that so often is right before the "give up because it must not be God's will" phase. This post is a place for me to jot down quotes, thoughts, and things I learn from the book.
The basic building blocks of a vision:
A vision begins as a concern.
A vision does not necessarily require immediate action.
Pray for opportunities and plan as if you expect God to answer your prayers.
God is using your circumstances to position and prepare you to accomplish his vision for your life.
And some quotes and lessons as I go through the book.
CHAPTER 1 - A VISION IS BORN
We've forgotten who we are and where we came from.
"Visions are born in the soul of a man or woman who is consumed with the tension between what is and what ...
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