I have had a great system for backing up photos for years:
So I have copies on my phone, the cloud, and laptop.
Now that Google has de-coupled Google Photos from Google Drive, that flow has been seriously broken. I’ll be switching to Microsoft OneDrive, which is simpler, more integrated into my OS, and and works as expected.
“Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without Church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without contrition. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship
A wonderful reflection. I used to celebrate ad orientem (fading liturgical East) weekly at our Wednesday Eucharist. Properly understood it is a beautiful way to worship together, and as Porter notes, can actually facilitate a deep sense of common worship.
A Few Thoughts on Eucharistic Orientation – Porter C. Taylor
One of the hardest things for me to do is to admit that I’m not okay. When someone asks me how I’m doing, my instinctive response is to say “great!” And I know I can always say that without lying. After all, I live the United States of America in first part of the 21st century.
I have a roof over my head, food on the table, a beautiful young family, and a church family that is supporting me in my vocational calling. Nevertheless, while just answering “great” is never a lie in that sense, it’s not always the most honest. Because sometimes I am drained, I am anxious, I am depressed, I am worried. Although I have so much, I still long for a word of Good News.
The reason I am longing for it isn’t because I’m not grateful for all that I have, but because I tend to keep trying to find my energy, identity, and security in the things and relationships around me instead of in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And I have found this to be true at every stage of my life: A a child, a single college student, a newly married man, as college minister, television producer (yes, I had a microscopically short career in television), when I have been full of doubts and full of faith, when I have been in-between local churches and as a parish priest. There is no time, no situation, no stage or station that I have experienced that I did not desperately need the Gospel.
I think this holds true for all of us. Whether you are homeless or a home-builder, self-deluded sinner or supposed saint, newborn or nearly to the end, exhausted or energized, we all need the Good News, because with out it, we will keep trying to to find that energy, identity, and and security in things that will only disappoint us in the end because one way or another they will not only fail to provide what we need on the deepest spiritual level, they are by necessity temporary.
Nothing from this world, even the good things, can sustain us past the point of death. And as human beings, we can’t survive on that kind of diet of constant disappointment and despair.
We need a life-giving Word
….a word that can free us from the tyranny of whatever situation we find ourselves in and give us hope. We need a word of life that that can free us not only from existential let-down, but that will result in real freedom from every spiritual or physical oppression.
From this week’s sermon.
I updated, then deleted my “now” page. It’s not fun or useful unless updated frequently, and doing that just felt like another task taking up mental energy and space.
Just realized my Fire HD 8 keyboard does Swype-style entry. Cool! I’m sure this is heresy to some of you out there, but I like the Fire tablet keyboard so much more than the iOS one 😱
St. Francis of A CC
LOL
Frederica Mathewes-Green, writing for the National Review in 2016:
I understand all the reasons why the movement’s prime attention is focused on the unborn. But we can also say that abortion is no bargain for women, either. It’s destructive and tragic. We shouldn’t listen unthinkingly to the other side of the time-worn script, the one that tells us that women want abortions, that abortion liberates them. Many a post-abortion woman could tell you a different story.
The pro-life cause is perennially unpopular, and pro-lifers get used to being misrepresented and wrongly accused. There are only a limited number of people who are going to be brave enough to stand up on the side of an unpopular cause. But sometimes a cause is so urgent, is so dramatically clear, that it’s worth it. What cause could be more outrageous than violence — fatal violence — against the most helpless members of our human community? If that doesn’t move us, how hard are our hearts? If that doesn’t move us, what will ever move us?
In time, it’s going to be impossible to deny that abortion is violence against children.
Before Christ went to the Cross for you and me, he told his disciples exactly what would mark them as his people to the world. Love has always been the principle thing. Love is nothing new for the people of God. Even in the Old Testament, the covenant community wasn’t simply about a strange diet. It was about loving God, and loving their neighbor as themselves. Jesus’ command to his disciples adds a another layer though:
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” (John 13:34, NLT)
The new aspect here is not that we should love others as we love ourselves (though we certainly should do that!). It’s that we are called to love one another as Christ has loved us.
He loves us when we are politically opposed to him. He loves us when we have moral failings. He loves us when we can’t seem to make a right decision. He loves us when we don’t have the energy to love ourselves. He simply loves, without condition or qualification. By the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, this is the kind of love we are invited to share with one another, across the political aisle, across denominational divides, on the street and in our sanctuaries. It is the kind of love Jesus demonstrated on the Cross, and so it is the kind of love that marks us as Jesus people.
This is why Jesus said,
“Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”” (John 13:35, NLT)
May it be just as our Lord has said.
From this week’s sermon.
In the book of Revelation we have a vision of a multitude praising and worshipping before the throne of God,
“…crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7:9–12, ESV)
All the worship given to God is also given to the Lamb–to Jesus–who retains that identity and is worshipped for it forever! There can be no separation between what God is like and what Jesus is like. The who point of incarnation is for the Shepherd to be with his sheep, to both identify himself to them and with them so that they will recognize his voice. We can be absolutely sure that if we are listening to and obeying Jesus, we are hearing and responding to God. If we want to know what God is like, we can say without qualification that God’s character is exactly like Jesus.
From this week’s sermon.
