This week I collected favorite songs, thought-provoking quotes, and interesting podcasts.
Whose rights? What rights?
Brothers and sisters, God has called you to freedom! Hear the call, and do not spoil this gift by using your liberty to engage in what your flesh desires; instead, use it to serve each other as Jesus taught through love. For the whole law comes down to this one instruction: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” –Galatians 5:13-14 VOICE
“The only right a Christian has is the right to give up his rights.”
—Oswald Chambers
A cool tune
Did you learn to type on a typewriter? I did … you remember the clickety-clack, the ding as you hit the return carriage. Check out this symphony production with the addition of a typewriter. Pretty clever!
Thoughtful podcast
If you are a Bible nerd or just love to geek out on reading and dissecting scripture, you might love this 56-minute podcast on just one verse, 1 commandment. The presenter has studied this command in-depth, “Don’t take the name of God in vain.” It’s soooo good! Hint, it’s not about those &#@!! words!
For my reading friends
My husband loves jazz – this is a favorite album of his.
If you happen to love to read, here’s a fun light jazz song from the album, I’ll Never Read Trollope Again.
Holding Joy & Grief, Light & Dark, Life & Death
This tree caught my eye on my walk this past week. I couldn’t help but think about the way we hold life & death in our bodies. Science tells us that some million cells in our bodies die every second. We hold joy & grief also – an extended family member died this week. And while his family grieves, we also rejoice because we know he is in heaven.
That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!
2 Corinthians 4:16-17 NLT
I listened to Carey Nieuwhof interview Susan Cain this week about her newest book, Bittersweet, related to this idea of holding both joy and longing. It was definitely inspirational! BUT then Susan Cain gets my personality type! Her book, Quiet, on being an introvert in a extrovert’s world helped me understand myself so much better. And now I must read Bittersweet, because like Cain, I profess to have a melancholy spirit.
“This book is about the melancholic direction, which I call the “bittersweet”: a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death—bitter and sweet—are forever paired. “Days of honey, days of onion,” as an Arabic proverb puts it.”
Susan Cain
Prayer
Father, may we hold lightly these feelings of light and dark, joy and grief, life and death. Teach us to run to You with our emotions, to trust You with them. And in trusting, to let go of the need to understand but to simply be in Your presence. Remind us over and over again that Your ways are not our ways and some things are just beyond our “pay grade!” Amen.
(For a slightly different prayer on holding together light and dark, click here).
I’d love to hear from you … what are you reading, listening to, watching?
