recklessly dreaming

From Henri Nouwen:

I have often said, “I forgive you,” but even as I said these words, my heart remained angry or resentful. I still wanted to hear the story that tells me that I was right after all; I still wanted to hear apologies and excuses; I still want the satisfaction of receiveing some praise in return - if only the praise for being so forgiving! But God’s forgiveness is unconditional; it comes from a heart that does not demand anything for itself, a heart that is empty of self-seeking. It is this divine forgiveness that I have to practice in my daily life. It calls me to keep stepping over all my arguements that say forgiveness is unwise, unhealthy, and impractical. It challenges me to step over my needs for gratitude and compliiments. Finally, it demands of me that I step over that wounded part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged and that wants to stay in control and put a few conditions between me and the one whom I am asked to forgive.

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Originally uploaded by jrogttu.

I am sitting on the back porch (and I have provided you a picture of my view) as I work on the powerpoint for part of our retreat weekend. our retreat is on communion, using several things from Hick’s book Come to the Table. On Saturday we are making the communion bread for that evening’s communion service. Our focus that day is community. I am working on putting pictures of our students behind the words for the afternoon service as a visual of what we are talking about.

I love wireless internet so I can type this sitting outside in the breeze!

I love “You Control Tunes” (formerly you control iTunes)- it places controls for iTunes on the top menu bar and gives you easy access to all (well most) of the features of iTunes without having to mess with the program itself and is much better than iTuner. Today it made me laugh. When it transitions to the next song, the four buttons (forward, pause, back, menu) disappear and the name of the song scrolls. This works well with song names that are more than one word - but for those one worders it looks funny. In this case it was Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero Hero - until it finished the alotted amount of time.
(That visual was included for those of you who like visuals - hope you enjoy –> now its Imagine Imagine Imagine Imagine Imagine Imagine Imagine)

Check this out!

Just for the record. Yesterday at church, I stood in the back with the elders for people that wanted to pray, talk, share a concern or priase - whatever they choose to do at this point. This is a first for this church. What I’d love to see (instead of me there all the time) is to have elders and their wives stadning together.

It’s finally out the new Holy Observer - click my title and smile. Wait don’t click if you don’t like things such as www.theonion.com and can chuckle at yourself.