To celebrate 100 posts - a new and regular offering for the John13:34 Blog - entitled The Weekly Round-Up. Rachel Evans, whose blog spot I have celebrated a number of times, does a weekly survey of what's out there in cyberspace. The answer is that there is indeed quite a bit of good stuff that can assist persons on their life journey. The problem is having the time to find it.
So, I am going to take Rachel's outline and offer to you on each and every Saturday a week's worth of the stimulating, spiritually challenging, and humorous postings that I come across in hopes that these articles and videos bring solace and joy to my readers. Click on the link after each quote to read further. Here goes....
Most Interesting Editorial of the Week
by Greg Smith for The New York Times
"To put the problem in the simplest terms, the interests of the client continue to be sidelined in the way the firm operates and thinks about making money. Goldman Sachs is one of the world’s largest and most important investment banks and it is too integral to global finance to continue to act this way. The firm has veered so far from the place I joined right out of college that I can no longer in good conscience say that I identify with what it stands for."
Reflection on the Episcopal Church and Cutting the Budget for Christan Formation
by Jerome Berryman
"A 90% cut is not a budget cut. It is a statement. Budgets are statements of values. The proposed budget for 2013-2015 appears to be a formal declaration of indifference for those who make decisions about funding the mission and ministry of The Episcopal Church regarding our church’s theology of children!"
Needed: A Theology of Children
Thanks for the Memories
Archbishop of Canterbury to Step Down
New York Times, March 16
"The resignation of the 61-year-old prelate had been widely predicted, and experts have been busy for months speculating over Dr. Williams’ likely successor as the senior bishop of the Church of England and as the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, the international network of Anglican and Episcopalian churches that estimates that it represents nearly 80 million people spread across the globe. Two possible candidates to succeed Dr. Williams whose names have won favor with supporters in the Church of England, traditionally the mother church of the union, have been Rt. Rev. John Sentamu, the 62-year-old Ugandan-born Archbishop of York, who is the Church of England’s second most senior bishop after Dr. Williams, and Rt. Rev. Richard Chartres, the 64-year-old Bishop of London."
ABC to Step Down
Celebrating Patrick of Ireland
On this March 17th feast day of the Patron Saint of Ireland, how much do you really know about Patrick and his ministry to the Irish people? Here is an informative three minute overview.
Newspaper Article that Supports My Blog Post: "You Give Them Something To Eat"
By Lisa Baertlein and Ernest Scheyder
"Hard data is still being collected, but experts at the Reuters Food and Agriculture Summit in Chicago this week said an estimated 30 percent to 50 percent of the food produced in the world goes uneaten."
30 to 50 Percent of the World's Food Thrown Away
This Blog Post Will Make You Think
by Steven James
"The Bible is a gritty book. Very raw. Very real. It deals with people just like us, just as needy and screwed up as we are, encountering a God who would rather die than spend eternity without them.
Yet despite that, it seems like Christians are uncomfortable with how earthy the Bible really is. They feel the need to tidy up God."
Stop Sugarcoating the Bible
A Reflection on Time
by Dennis Merritt
"Time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked." -- Sir Noel Coward, Blithe Spirit. With daylight saving time happening on March 11, I have been thinking about how much of our lives are spent trying to manage and often manipulate something that doesn't really exist. We invented time by placing numbers on a calendar and then by placing them on the face of a man made device called a clock which then aided us in maintaining our lives in a linear fashion based on the three "tenses": past, present and future. The universe knows nothing about time -- it is we who created and live our lives around time, which, no pun intended, makes us "tense" much of the time."
Spring Ahead... Really?
A Moving Post About Death and Dying
by Kerry Egan
"Today, 13 years later, I am a hospice chaplain. I visit people who are dying – in their homes, in hospitals, in nursing homes. And if you were to ask me the same question - What do people who are sick and dying talk about with the chaplain? – I, without hesitation or uncertainty, would give you the same answer. Mostly, they talk about their families: about their mothers and fathers, their sons and daughters."
What People Talk About Before They Die
Good For A Laugh ~ Reclaiming Jesus' Sense of Humor
by James Martin, SJ
"Here’s a serious question about levity: The Bible clearly paints a picture of Jesus of Nazareth as a clever guy, but he never seems to laugh, much less crack a smile. Did Jesus really have no sense of humor; didn't he ever laugh? Well, one difficulty with finding humor in the New Testament is that what was seen as funny to those living in Jesus' time may not seem funny to us. For someone in first-century Palestine, the premise (or “setup” as a comic would say) was probably more amusing than the punch line. "The parables were amusing in their exaggeration or hyperbole," Amy-Jill Levine, a New Testament scholar at Vanderbilt University, said in an interview. 'The idea that a mustard seed would have sprouted into a big bush that birds would build their nests in would be humorous.'"
Reclaiming Jesus' Sense of Humor
Spiritual Exercises - Very Cool Website!
by Michael Hudson
"First Mindfulness Exercise: Mindful Breathing. The first exercise is very simple, but the power, the result, can be very great. The exercise is simply to identify the in-breath as in-breath and the out-breath as out-breath. When you breathe in, you know that this is your in-breath. When you breathe out, you are mindful that this is your out-breath."
Ordinary Mindfulness
Most Viewed Post on the John13:34 Blog This week
"You Give Them Something To Eat."
Lent 3 - Thursday
Always End With Children or Animals!
This is a keeper from GMA (Good Morning America)
Puppy and the Great Dane
Love One Another - Brian
Most Viewed Post on the John13:34 Blog This week
"You Give Them Something To Eat."
Lent 3 - Thursday
Always End With Children or Animals!
This is a keeper from GMA (Good Morning America)
Puppy and the Great Dane
Love One Another - Brian
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