StatCounter
Sunday, September 15, 2019
MUSIC OF THE NIGHT
I’ve given myself a belated B-Day present. Today Christine & I are soon going to enjoy Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 70th B-Day Concert Tour presenting all of his major musical moments. I’m eager for this musical treat.
TOP OF THE MORNING ( a poem)
TOP OF THE MORNING
Sweetheart delivered my morning hug
Familiar now, no youthful fainting.
Hot Coffee in my Tom Thompson mug,
With printed image of his painting.
A quiet start to an easy day
I leisurely gaze through misty blur
A distant pine tree with gentle sway
A black crow sits on its topmost spur.
From two hundred feet above the ground.
He surveys the realm of human homes.
Drew my attention without a sound,
Found his way into one of my poems.
© Ron Unruh, September 2019
Friday, September 13, 2019
77 YEARS OLD
But it’s okay. I find it interesting how a person at my age makes some naturally comfortable conclusions that an imminent departure from the planet’s surface is not tragic. In fact apart from the family connections with children and grandchildren which one does not want to leave, it seems okay to leave. It’s expected after all. Everyone leaves eventually.
And I have the assurance that my faith provides to me, that life ending here does not terminate my existence but rather I live beyond the immediate in an arena of glory about which I know nothing other than what scripture promises is true for me.Don’t ask me why I am discussing ‘demise’ because I don’t know. I have a lot of life and every reason to be content with my life at the moment. I am humbly grateful for my health and my mind and my loved ones and my fun activities including painting and writing and marshalling at a golf course, and occasionally preaching God’s Word. So today I start a new year for me, my 77th on Planet Earth. I am looking forward to what God will do this year.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
RAPID CHRISTIAN RESPONSE IS NOT A TOO-TALL EXPECTATION
It’s not surprising that some Christians become disillusioned and disappointed with a church, with its leaders and with the Christian friends who comprise it. Christian education and evangelism are not the only services a church should prioritize. When a person, or couple or family experiences a crisis, the church should respond. Rapid Christian response should be the ready position. Christian friends should jump to assist. Even when the presenting issue is awkward, distressing, immoral, angry, or hopeless, it is a God-assigned responsibility to love and to listen and to counsel and to shelter and to give aid. That’s not a too-tall expectation.find the entire essay here ... at my NO,MAYBE,YES SITE
VERITY - a poem
VERITY
Fervently believed it, trust so stout
so life was joy and faith uplifting.
Yet now with life, belief is shifting,
listening to alternate voices,
compliant with some lifestyle choices.
Daringly rejects it, choosing doubt
so life seems bliss as faith’s evolving,
assuming this is problem solving.
Only for one, for others heartbreak,
collateral damage in the wake.
Ardently trusting the others shout.
Their lives are hell but faith’s compelling.
Their God will amend this rebelling;
His love will bring recalibration,
Restoring conjoint admiration.
By Ron Unruh, September 2019
Back Story: Sometimes loved ones experience disappointment that derails them from faith and relationships with people who care deeply.
Sunday, September 1, 2019
A petite peek at my theology
A short selection of blurbs I stick on Facebook, freshly expressed, occasionally
A petite peek at my theology:
Human bodies are like one-person tents. Of satisfying, practical and robust construction yet impermanent. Matched to earth but short-lived. Much of life makes us groan, expecting a promised new covering when we graduate from mortality to life beyond for which God’s Spirit is our present warranty.
A petite peek at my theology:
When a soul is too cramped for God to enter, hoarded but useless contents must be removed. Into the resultant capacity God will come to stay and will keep the soul uncluttered and spotless. More satisfied and positioned for a Kingdom.
A petite peek at my theology:
God is great. Must be. Pre-existed all we know. Needed no one. Chose to create humanity to reflect the Creator. Humanity tarnished. Creator came here to restore that reflection. Human efforts to associate Creator with social, political, and economic interests and personalities cheapen Creator’s greatness.
A petite peek into my theology:
The grand designer says, “I never told you that the measure of your worth is directly equivalent to the measure of your stuff. In fact I denounce envy as your most persistent 21st century economic driver. What you should have heard from me is that you can gain a whole world full of toys but still not be rich enough to protect your soul.”
A Petite Peek Into My Theology
It’s reasonable to conclude that since God forgives human sins, not holding on to resentments but reconciling with humans for the purpose of relationship, that the forgiven ones can similarly reject resentment in favour of reconciled human relationships.
A petite peek into my theology:
The world has never been more connected than it is now when you are alive. Ironically despite that access to connection, loneliness is pandemic. Yet we were created for relationship with the Maker and with those He made. Authentic connectedness to one another is contingent upon our connectedness with God.
A Petite Peek into My Theology:
God is the Creator, not us; we can’t shape God to be Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat; and we can’t tint God white, brown, carmine or black. We can’t make him passionate about what we love or make him angry about what angers us.
A petite peek into my theology:
I know I am loved and therefore I can risk the uncertainty of loving others, you in fact, for the One who loves me most, knows me best, and I ain’t perfect. That’s emancipating and emboldening, and together we can make this work.
A petite peek into my theology:
Faith and redemption are themes in W.P. Kinsella’s novel ‘Shoeless Joe.’ Kinsella’s protagonist is Ray, the corn farmer who heard Joe’s voice telling him to build a ball diamond on his Iowa farm and ‘they’ will come. With faith Ray complied and each evening from his cornfield, came ballplayers from the disgraced 1919 Chicago White Sox, dubbed the Black Sox because seven teammates took bribes to throw the 1991 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Ray’s estranged and deceased father John was one of the players on the field. In an emotional redemptive reunion father and son threw the ball to one another before John faded into the corn. Kinsella writes fiction, entertaining make-believe that I endorse because I enjoy the genre. In my non-fiction real life world, faith and redemption are priority themes about which I insist upon truth that I believe embraces faith in Someone whose self-sacrifice redeemed me for life with him.
A petite peek at my theology:
Human bodies are like one-person tents. Of satisfying, practical and robust construction yet impermanent. Matched to earth but short-lived. Much of life makes us groan, expecting a promised new covering when we graduate from mortality to life beyond for which God’s Spirit is our present warranty.
A petite peek at my theology:
When a soul is too cramped for God to enter, hoarded but useless contents must be removed. Into the resultant capacity God will come to stay and will keep the soul uncluttered and spotless. More satisfied and positioned for a Kingdom.
A petite peek at my theology:
God is great. Must be. Pre-existed all we know. Needed no one. Chose to create humanity to reflect the Creator. Humanity tarnished. Creator came here to restore that reflection. Human efforts to associate Creator with social, political, and economic interests and personalities cheapen Creator’s greatness.
A petite peek into my theology:
The grand designer says, “I never told you that the measure of your worth is directly equivalent to the measure of your stuff. In fact I denounce envy as your most persistent 21st century economic driver. What you should have heard from me is that you can gain a whole world full of toys but still not be rich enough to protect your soul.”
A Petite Peek Into My Theology
It’s reasonable to conclude that since God forgives human sins, not holding on to resentments but reconciling with humans for the purpose of relationship, that the forgiven ones can similarly reject resentment in favour of reconciled human relationships.
A petite peek into my theology:
The world has never been more connected than it is now when you are alive. Ironically despite that access to connection, loneliness is pandemic. Yet we were created for relationship with the Maker and with those He made. Authentic connectedness to one another is contingent upon our connectedness with God.
A Petite Peek into My Theology:
God is the Creator, not us; we can’t shape God to be Liberal or Conservative, Republican or Democrat; and we can’t tint God white, brown, carmine or black. We can’t make him passionate about what we love or make him angry about what angers us.
A petite peek into my theology:
I know I am loved and therefore I can risk the uncertainty of loving others, you in fact, for the One who loves me most, knows me best, and I ain’t perfect. That’s emancipating and emboldening, and together we can make this work.
A petite peek into my theology:
Faith and redemption are themes in W.P. Kinsella’s novel ‘Shoeless Joe.’ Kinsella’s protagonist is Ray, the corn farmer who heard Joe’s voice telling him to build a ball diamond on his Iowa farm and ‘they’ will come. With faith Ray complied and each evening from his cornfield, came ballplayers from the disgraced 1919 Chicago White Sox, dubbed the Black Sox because seven teammates took bribes to throw the 1991 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. Ray’s estranged and deceased father John was one of the players on the field. In an emotional redemptive reunion father and son threw the ball to one another before John faded into the corn. Kinsella writes fiction, entertaining make-believe that I endorse because I enjoy the genre. In my non-fiction real life world, faith and redemption are priority themes about which I insist upon truth that I believe embraces faith in Someone whose self-sacrifice redeemed me for life with him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)