This is reeeally lame!!

Nationals bench Dukes after Little League-related tardy note

Sheep counting...

So, is Church Attendance down these days or is Sanctuary Attendance down? What are ways you see sheep grazing these days that make them harder to count? Are we still counting sheep the old way? Maybe all sheep aren't grazing the fields the way they used to. Many are grazing virtually, monthly, and creatively. Hmmm....just something to ponder.

Caffeine...it does "the body" good!

Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia released a study showing that caffeine makes people more open to logical argument, even when it runs counter to their previously held opinions. The caffeine group, across the board, tested out as being consistently more open-minded than the decaf group. This would definitely lend new credibility to the belief that conversations over coffee are a good thing (but didn't we already know this?! lol)

An open mind is necessary for any relationship to grow. You have to be open to another way of thinking to relate to someone, because we are all different – we have different backgrounds, different gifts, and we see things from different points of view. Lasting relationships grow out of accepting one another's differences. We appreciate each other more through consensus than through conformity.

This kind of open-mindedness in relationships is important for more reasons than just our differences. It is important because we are always changing, and since we are all in process, we have to remain open to that process in each other. My road will not be yours; yours will not be mine, even if we walk together. God has different plans for each of us. Jesus Christ did not die to create clones. He died so He could fill each one of our unique natures with Himself.

And finally, part of who we are becoming involves those closest to us. We are not who we are in a vacuum. We are a product of the people we know and how we have grown together. We shape each other. When this aspect is strong, there is a healthy push and pull at work. “As iron sharpens iron, a friend sharpens a friend.” (Proverbs 27:17 NLT)

Belief has commonly been associated with a closed mind. This is unfortunate because nothing could be further from the truth. Belief opens you up to God and gives you his Spirit to help reinterpret the world around you. Belief is all about discovery, and just as our relationships with each other are not static, neither is our relationship with God. We are constantly discovering more about God and his world, and we are constantly discovering more about ourselves and those around us. ~ John Fischer

So go ahead, pour another cup of joe for you and that friend. Open your hearts and minds to each other and see what happens!

Remotes on the brain...

Don't ask why I'm even thinking about this, but why are all remotes designed so that the user has to point the end to the tv? Wouldn't it be more ergonimic to hold the remote upright, so you can see the numbers better? The sensor shooter doo-hickey would be on the backside of the remote, so you can easily look at the remote, punch the button and shoot it at the tv. Maybe the sensor shooter is on the tip-top of the remote because it gives the remote control a sense of a magical wand and you a sense of power! You point the stick, it shoots out the tip....Ooooh! Although my idea for the remote control would be similiar to the memory eraser on "Men in Black." Kinda makes me wonder why the producers of "Men in Black" have them hold the memory eraser stick up when using it. Now imagine a remote with the added feature of a memory eraser for when you've just watched a bad movie or tv show? Or better yet take it to the movies and use it after you've seen a movie you can't believe you just paid $12.00 for!! This clearly could have possibilities!

State of Play

I have been waiting forever for the remake of this movie, State of Play and it's almost here!!! It releases world wide this coming Friday, 4/17 and I highly, highly recommend it even sight unseen!!! In the meantime, here's a clip and a most excellent article about this movie!!

The Last Hurrah of Hollywood's Hero Journalist?

A Friday unlike any other....

The wounds on his hands bled slowly. Pressure from the weight of his body held back the flow. If there had been no other sounds that afternoon, it probably would have sounded like the slow, steady drip off the eaves of a mountain cabin on a damp foggy night. But there were many sounds. Taunts from the soldiers, weeping and wailing from the women near the feet of Jesus, even careless laughter from children playing haphazardly around the perimeter of the crucifixion hill, oblivious to the significance of this particular execution. Small dark puddles would gather briefly under the top beam of the cross, only to be covered by the shuffle of a guard's feet. And then it would start in again: drip… drip… drip—little droplets seen but not heard. Mary saw them. She stared at the puddle through her bloodshot eyes while his life flashed before her, and it seemed to her that the earth swallowed his blood as if it had been created for this. As if it were drinking its fill and would thirst no more. Then she slowly turned her eyes up to his face, and her breath failed her. He already had her in the grasp of his eyes. It was the first time he had looked at her from the cross, and his eyes were full of the deepest despair and the deepest love she had ever known. In his eyes, it seemed as if she were falling—falling into a bottomless abyss. She looked until she could bear it no more and turned her eyes away so she could catch her breath again. Once more her gaze went to the small puddle in the dirt, and it seemed now that she, and only she, could hear the droplets landing, loud enough to shut out all other sounds....by John Fischer

Powerful words! As a mom, my mind can't even comprehend, nor do i want to, that moment, thru the eyes of Mary, to see her son on the cross.

A heartwrenching saga!