Bits.

Sometimes I pretend that disparate ideas can actually belong together in a post if I just throw them all in here….

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Ecclesiastes tells us it’s better to go to a funeral than a party but that’s still a hard pill to swallow.

Attended the viewing on Friday of a man I’d not had the pleasure of meeting, though I’d heard a lot of wonderful about him. Cancer took this husband and father of 4 from the world much earlier than we would have wished.

Mused over the barbarous nature of forcing a grieving widow and children to see everyone in the town via a 4-hour marathon.  That’s something I with Southerners would change. My Northern family & friends tend to spread out their grief visitations over 2 -3 days and 4 sessions. Things are more neighborly that way.  As neighborly as you can get at a funeral parlor….

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Love is the thing.  Of all the “change agents” that people try to shove into the lives of people around them, the only one that really counts is faith expressing itself through love (to echo Paul’s words in Galatians 5).

There is a sweetness in the life of people who choose to love the messy people around them instead of demanding change, imposing change, enforcing change. You can’t get to someone’s heart through rules, regardless of how destructive you think their behavior is.

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There’s a man in my church who worked at Pratt & Whitney on the engines for the SR-71 Blackbird, one of the space vehicles, and the Joint Strike Fighter.  I think that’s pretty cool.  This photo is for him:

Airplanes are sexy. That one is, anyway.

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Blazed through a book today, Death by Suburb by David Goetz.  *shrugs*  It was pretty good. He attempted several good points about the materialism of American suburban life and the way Christians get distracted by their success-driven search for “immortality symbols.”

He correctly identifies that much we do in the name of Jesus is actually for our own benefit — to make ourselves feel better about the world and our place in it, to satisfy an internal need to avoid guilt by paying lip service to community service or mission work, to gain social advantage.  But his suggested solutions struck me as kind of equally kitschy. The chapters center on what he calls 8 spiritual disciplines …. but really the chapters are just full of anecdotes and what seem to me to be random quotes from either a medieval mystic or CS Lewis.

I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend the book, but if you know of someone who’s blithely living apart from any actual comprehension of how white suburban Christianity is tied to American materialism, maybe this is worth a read for them.

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Much better reading comes in the form of Robert Farrar Capon’s delightful theology-cum-cookbook The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection. Delivered into my hands as a well-chosen Christmas gift by a friend, I have savored every word. (Pun intended.)

Capon loved cooking – in his Scandinavian-flavored way – and he grasped the sweeping narrative of Redemption history, seeing it in the bones of our existence.  I know it sounds strange, but you haven’t enjoyed the beauty of spiritual reflection until you’ve thrown in a recipe for roast lamb and read about how to pick a good cleaver.

I will leave you intrigued. 🙂

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Visited the Due South Coffee Company – finally! – this Saturday, as part of a much-needed trek for rest and not-work. Check out this beautiful place: