Now that my youngest son has his licence he is regularly using my car to get around. Whenever I get in the car after he has driven it there are two things I always have to adjust. First, I move the seat forward because his legs are much longer than mine. Second, I switch the radio over from the Bluetooth setting (he streams his favourite music from his phone) back to ABC Classic FM. Well, the playlist may be different but we both have a soundtrack that gets us moving.
Do you have a soundtrack that gets you out of bed in the morning, that gets you going for the day, that keeps you going? I hope so. Actually, I hope that soundtrack is ‘hope’. Without hope life stops. I’ve always found the best place to find hope is in the music of the gospel. That’s ‘gospel’ as in the good news that Jesus is risen from the grave, death is no longer a full stop to life, there is always more to come.
If you haven’t tuned into that station for a while, I recommend having a listen. How about today?
In the business world the aim of recruiting is to match the right person to the right job so the expectations of employer and applicant are met. In today’s tight labour market, it sometimes seems applicants will only look for jobs that suit them on their terms.
Jesus has a different approach to recruitment. Jesus is looking for people who will trust even as they struggle to trust. He is looking for people who don’t have the skills, who don’t have the talent, who don’t have a clue about fishing for people, who are not worthy even to be in God’s presence. Jesus is looking for people who aren’t even looking for him, who are distracted by other things, and who have got their life mapped out for themselves. Jesus is looking for those sort of people, and when he finds them he says: “Let’s go fishing”.
“Where is love?” Thus sang Oliver Twist after being thrown into the cellar of a funeral parlour. (If you’re singing it in your head now, you have to elongate the ‘Wh – er – e’)
“What the world needs now is love, sweet love”. Thus warbled Hal David to a Burt Bacharach melody.
“All you need is love”. Thus sang the Beatles (although no one could hear them above the screaming of teenage girls).
“Without love I am nothing”. Thus growled Paul of Tarsus (I am imagining some Leonard Cohen whiskey and gravel)
Oliver’s question is a good one. If love is so important why is it so hard to find in our world? And if it’s so hard to find in our world, what does that say about us?
Paul pulls no punches when he writes to the church in Corinth. I suspect he would be slightly bemused to see his ‘Chapter 13’ has become a smash hit in the pop charts and on the wedding circuit.
Yesterday is history, tomorrow’s a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present. – The source of this famous quote is unknown, but it is spoken best by an elderly tortoise, Grandmaster Oogway, in Kung Fu Panda.
Perspective is a good thing. Perspective helps us to have a greater awareness of the world around us. Perspective allows us to see the needs of others. Perspective gives us a sense of our place. Perspective helps us decide what’s more important and what’s less important.
Imagine you were to go to your wine cellar and found it empty! No wine! And, it’s a public holiday! The bottle-o isn’t open! What would you do? How would you feel? How would you cope?
I’m not joking. Those sort of issues are serious. More serious than you might think. Especially when you live in the eastern suburbs. They’re perhaps some of the most serious issues we face.
Juliet:
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? . . . ‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. There’s truth there, isn’t there? But,not the whole truth. If only it were that simple, Juliet! What’s in a name? Lots! For us human beings our names are primarily about relationship. They are part of the complex web of interactions that make us who we are . . . not objects, but living, breathing, hoping, hurting, thinking, feeling beings. Names are about identity. (Now, that’s a trendy word: identity.) And, identity is much about who does the naming.
So, I wonder, who are you?
Across
31. Undeserved competition following end of king (5)
Samuel has been getting into an online game called GeoGuessr lately. It’s quite simple really: you are given a completely random location from Google Streetview and you have 30 seconds to guess where you are. The more accurate the guess the more points you get. The tricky part is that your snapshot could be anywhere in the world, and often all you see is desert, or scrub, or featureless plain with no other landmarks. You literally have to ask yourself, “Where on earth am I?”
Perhaps that’s a question for us as we come to the close of one year and begin another: Where are you? Where do you need to be? Are you sure? Or, is it just a guess?
Feel free to ponder that question any way you choose: geographically, professionally, emotionally, spiritually, etc.
Where on earth am I?
A couple of weeks ago Sam and I were playing GeoGuessr together. We were struggling to identify any of the locations. Our opponent was well ahead. Then, on the screen, up came a location we recognized: Waikerie Lutheran Church. Out of all the possible random locations in the world! If there is any grace in GeoGuessr, that was it!
We knew exactly where we were.
Sometimes a picture speaks more than words