On the Lighter Side There is Always Tim Horton's For The Rest of Us

don't 'dis' this little guy.




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1. SAVE THE WHALES. COLLECT THE WHOLE SET.

2. A DAY WITHOUT SUNSHINE IS LIKE..., NIGHT.

3. ON THE OTHER HAND, YOU HAVE DIFFERENT FINGERS.

4. I JUST GOT LOST IN THOUGHT. IT WASN'T FAMILIAR TERRITORY.

5. 42.7 PERCENT OF ALL STATISTICS ARE MADE UP ON THE SPOT.

6. 99 PERCENT OF LAWYERS GIVE THE REST A BAD NAME.

7. I FEEL LIKE I'M DIAGONALLY PARKED IN A PARALLEL UNIVERSE.

8. HONK IF YOU LOVE PEACE AND QUIET.

9. REMEMBER, HALF THE PEOPLE YOU KNOW ARE BELOW AVERAGE.

10. HE WHO LAUGHS LAST, THINKS SLOWEST.

11. DEPRESSION IS MERELY ANGER WITHOUT ENTHUSIASM.

12. THE EARLY BIRD MAY GET THE WORM, BUT THE SECOND MOUSE GETS THE CHEESE.

13. I DRIVE WAY TOO FAST TO WORRY ABOUT CHOLESTEROL.

14. SUPPORT BACTERIA. THEY'RE THE ONLY CULTURE SOME PEOPLE HAVE.

15. MONDAY IS AN AWFUL WAY TO SPEND 1/7 OF YOUR WEEK.

16. A CLEAR CONSCIENCE IS USUALLY THE SIGN OF A BAD MEMORY.

17. CHANGE IS INEVITABLE, EXCEPT FROM VENDING MACHINES.

18. GET A NEW CAR FOR YOUR SPOUSE. IT'LL BE A GREAT TRADE!

19. PLAN TO BE SPONTANEOUS TOMORROW.

20. ALWAYS TRY TO BE MODEST, AND BE PROUD OF IT!

21. IF YOU THINK NOBODY CARES, TRY MISSING A COUPLE OF PAYMENTS.

22. HOW MANY OF YOU BELIEVE IN PSYCHO-KINESIS? RAISE MY HAND.

23. OK, SO WHAT'S THE SPEED OF DARK?

24. HOW DO YOU TELL WHEN YOU'RE OUT OF INVISIBLE INK?

25. IF EVERYTHING SEEMS TO BE GOING WELL, YOU HAVE OBVIOUSLY OVERLOOKED SOMETHING.

26. WHEN EVERYTHING IS COMING YOUR WAY, YOU'RE IN THE WRONG LANE.

27. HARD WORK PAYS OFF IN THE FUTURE. LAZINESS PAYS OFF NOW.

28. EVERYONE HAS A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY. SOME JUST DO NOT HAVE FILM.

29. IF BARBIE IS SO POPULAR, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BUY HER FRIENDS?

30. HOW MUCH DEEPER WOULD THE OCEAN BE WITHOUT SPONGES?

31. EAGLES MAY SOAR, BUT WEASELS DO NOT GET SUCKED INTO JET ENGINES.

32. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU GET SCARED HALF TO DEATH TWICE?

33. I USED TO HAVE AN OPEN MIND BUT MY BRAINS KEPT FALLING OUT.

34. I COULDN'T REPAIR YOUR BRAKES, SO I MADE YOUR HORN LOUDER.

35. WHY DO PSYCHICS HAVE TO ASK YOU FOR YOUR NAME?

36. INSIDE EVERY OLDER PERSON IS A YOUNGER PERSON WONDERING WHAT HAPPENED.

37. JUST REMEMBER - IF THE WORLD DID NOT SUCK, WE WOULD ALL FALL OFF.

38. LIGHT TRAVELS FASTER THAN SOUND, WHICH IS WHY SOME PEOPLE APPEAR BRIGHT UNTIL YOU HEAR THEM SPEAK.




do you believe in life after death?





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Follow up

impossibleape 6/16/2006 11:14 AM 112 out of 119
OH by the way in case you think I don't like any American media evangelists, I do like

Hank Hanegraaff(?)you know the 'BAM' man (not the Emiril Legace the chef, but Hank the Bible Answer Man)

Ravi Zacharias although he came to you thru us from India

Chuck Colson. If we put every evangelist in jail we could have better quality preachers

Dr. Dobson I like him most of the time, when he isn't trying to be too political.

Dr. Hugh Ross he was one of us Canucks first and he gives me Reasons to Believe

R.C. Sproule I like him because he is smarter than the average Yogi

I do like 100 Huntley Street It is the one TV show that makes my list. There is something about the 'Telly' that lends itself to sensationalism and distortion. It demands a high level of 'show biz'.

100 Huntley Street is only available in Canada.
Only in Canada you say?
"Pity".
And now please pass the Red Rose Tea dearie.

All of these shows have a certain Bull Spit content but then so does every human being on the face of the planet. These seem to have less of a BS content than most preachers on the airways.

impossibleape 6/16/2006 12:10 PM 118 out of 119
the emphasis on repressing sexuality makes us think that those failings are worse than greed, manipulation, deceit and exploitation. Its like those who abhor anyone enjoying a beer but are grossly over indulgent in feeding their face. The teaching most evangelicals get is badly skewed, that may be why my list of trustworthy media Christians is made up of all teachers and one doer. If you can't do, teach but I personally would prefer if more of us got motivated to actively and meaningfully love in the world.

impossibleape 6/16/2006 12:55 PM 119 out of 119
and by love I mean agape and philo in case anyone was wondering

A Parody of Jesus' Hyperbole

Here is a part of a discussion I am engaged in on beliefnet about the influence of today's crop of tele-evangelists:

dear shiloian;
I think this thread is a call for the evangelical church to get its house in order, that's why I said we should be seeing the comments as proof that we need to value integrity (and reality) in ministry

and Ms. Merope;
I agree that doing is much more important than saying and we evangelicals are mostly all full of talk and the wrong talk at that. Instead of emphasizing getting out of our fortress churches and helping and loving and interacting with people in an authentic way we are trying to be plastic perfect saints

Some of us have become a parody of Jesus' hyperbole. We are eyeless (we do not see the suffering around us, or perhaps don't care) we are handless (we do much too little about suffering, and usually prefer to pray at a distance rather than getting dirty in a real life lived in the real world) and testicleless, we are spending all our energies trying to deny our God given natures. We are made sexual and I do acknowledge that we do need to learn how to harness this but our ridiculous emphasis on never having an unclean thought leaves us with no energy or time to make an impact for love in the world. This wrong emphasis is an abomination greater than much that we continually condemn.

Matt. 5
28But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
29And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
30And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

This statement is hyperbole. It emphasizes something to such a degree as to make the statement shocking. If we were meant to take this literally, we would all be blind, handicapped and impotent (in reference to becoming eunuchs for the kingdom).
Jesus' teachings are meant to show us that no one can be righteous enough to merit God's love. That is why Jesus gives us grace instead.

Why can't we give that grace a try?

At least that is how this myopic ape sees it.




Let's stop making our lives a parody of Jesus' hyperbole.

LH

To those who follow the prosperity preaching, a quote from John veltri SJ;

To those who follow the prosperity preaching, a quote from John veltri SJ;

Salvation is a deliverance, but not a deliverance from physical and mental anguish as such. It is a deliverance from arrogance and overweening self-confidence; it is a deliverance from the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves; it is a deliverance from fear, sometimes panic fear; it is a deliverance from thinking that our wholeness as persons depends on external circumstances; it is a deliverance from the illusion that people or property can, at least in our case, keep time and decay permanently at bay. Salvation is a deliverance from every form of self-preoccupation, self-reliance and self-righteousness which will prevent us from experiencing the mystery and call within our very being. It is the way of making us realistic, honest and ultimately whole.Often only when a person is forced to one's knees does one acknowledge that human autonomy has limits. Our resources are insufficient to make us absolute masters of our destiny. We shrink from intense suffering. Yet in suffering we encounter mystery and through mystery find meaning. This is not mere rhetoric for its own sake. No doubt, for some people, the conviction, that human life has resonances over and beyond what is visible and tangible, can come through the experience of intense love or startling human goodness. But for the majority of us it is through bitter suffering that we realize there is a power beyond our own. This unveils an order of things which is more extensive than the visible pattern of human affairs. It is in the moment of bitterest suffering that faith is born. This is the kind of faith involving personal conviction and commitment rather than mental adhesion to a set of beliefs not really part of our lives. Through suffering we acquire a sense of spaciousness. Far from being imprisoned within the confines of space and time, we suddenly realize that the whole story of our life is to stretch beyond the grave. The physical and mental limitations that anger us in our present situation are not to last forever. It is through suffering, which at first faces us as a blank wall, that we eventually discover the secret entrance into the pleasant garden of God's love, and taste for the first time a security which nothing short of God can supply. Through suffering we come to understand how human lives interlock and mysteriously influence each other. Jean Danielou's statement that suffering is the meeting point between good and evil begins to make sense. The possibility that the wicked are redeemable through the suffering of the good becomes a genuine conviction and motive of action. It is through suffering that all kinds of power and understanding which have lain dormant in us are released. "All sunshine", runs an Arab proverb, "makes a desert". Those who have not suffered lack a dimension. However much we shrink from it, without suffering we cannot become fully human. Salvation is the process through which we are given the power to achieve full humanity.

I picked this up from a contributor on a beliefnet forum. You are wise beyond your peers blessed Walking Eagles.

http://www.beliefnet.com/boards/message_list.asp?pageID=3&discussionID=514709&messages_per_page

Christian Care of the 'Retarded'

By Stanley M. Hauerwas

"The retarded are the sign that all men have significance beyond what they can be for us-our friend, our playmate, our brother; each of us is precious and significant because his being is grounded in God's care. The retarded, the poor, the sick, are particularly intense forms of Gods call to every man through the other. God calls us to regard each other as significant as we each exist in him, as we are each God's gift to the other." The presence and necessary care of the retarded raise harder and deeper problems than the optimism necessary to sustain any humanism can entertain. These harder questions were best articulated for me by a young man through a song he sang during the reception of the eucharist at the University of Notre Dame. He bad written the song after a friend had shared his agony about learning to live with a retarded brother. It goes like this:

(For Rick)
I.I have a brother, forgotten child
I ask myself why? I get no answers.
Does anyone know, in God's name,
why Some are retarded?

Refrain
Give me strength to face the madness.
To be able to say there was some purpose.
Give me strength to face the madness.
Why? No it's happened.Why? No it's happened.

II.He's older than I,
I've always thought
We should have grown up together
Playing baseball, going swimming
Enjoying summer, like other brothers.

III. He does not know me, he can say nothing.
I have no reasons, but I love him.
We could have been friends, learned together
I only ask, where is he?
(Steve Campbell)

We are seldom able to ask the questions raised by this song; they remind us too much of the fragility and ambiguity of our existence.



Editor's note:
This article was written in the 1970's. Its language is of an another erea and some of the words are harsh to our ears. I am sure Prof. Hauerwas meant no indignity or undue disrepect by them but they do reflect the mind of the time, a mind that we are striving to overcome. We have come a long way but we have a million miles to travel still.

The rest of this essay can be accesssed here, Stanley M. Hauerwas

I tell you, this man went down to his house justified

Luke 18 KJV

9And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:

10Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.

11The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.

12I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.

13And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.

14I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.





What say ye?

No one comes to the Father but......

No one comes to the Father except by Jesus or perhaps more accurately thru what Jesus is, namely grace, truth and love. It is my belief that upon each individual's death a moment of clarity (like near the death experiences) is given to all those who haven't had an adequate hearing of the gospel (and that includes most everyone- we Christians haven't given the best account of ourselves)Jesus himself allows us to humbly choose Him or to willfully and clearly reject him.The way to salvation was taught us by Jesus in the parable of the Pharisee (of whom a great deal are Christians today) and the Publican (Who can be just about anyone).



This is a doctrine that Evangelicals have wrong. Our false interpretation of exclusivity placed on an inclusivist Saviour has done damage to our cause and has contributed to making the church a backwater and not a headwater in God's work in the world.

Any thoughts on this subject will be entertained and appreciated?


John 14:6 (English Standard Version)

6Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me

LH