1 O Lord, I have come to you for protection;
don’t let me be disgraced.
2 Save me and rescue me,
for you do what is right.
Turn your ear to listen to me,
and set me free.
3 Be my rock of safety
where I can always hide.
Give the order to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
4 My God, rescue me from the power of the wicked,
from the clutches of cruel oppressors.
5 O Lord, you alone are my hope.
I’ve trusted you, O Lord, from childhood.
6 Yes, you have been with me from birth;
from my mother’s womb you have cared for me.
No wonder I am always praising you!
I am not an art connoisseur of art. I have been to museums. I was able to visit the Pablo Picasso Museum. That was unique, not my style, but certainly worthy of being considered art. I really like Van Gogh, particularly his Starry Night painting and The Church at Auvers. The church has no doors and the person can’t get in. Very telling!
That being said, and particularly because I’m not a connoisseur, I have divided up art into a few categories.
1. The Thomas Kinekade/Norman Rockwell kind of art. You know, the “everything is perfect art”.
2. The Picasso kind of art – abstract and unique.
3. The Mass-produced, put behind your couch kind of art. It’s pretty. It’s contemporary. It livens up the walls.
4. The starving artists art. Someone licenses a painting to a group who then outsource the painting to China (or some other place) and then sell the paints for $20 US. I have a couple of pieces like that in my office.
5. The “looks like a photograph” kind of art. I’ve got some of those in my office, particularly Daniel Moore paintings.
My favorite art, however, is the customized, personalized kind of art. A few years ago, we had a lady do two paintings during one of my sermon. She did one painting and I talked while she did that, got the art and showed it to everyone, and then moved on while she painted the second piece. Now she already had it sort of drawn out, so that I wasn’t preaching for hours. In fact, I actually had to improvise so she had time to finish. Those pieces are in my office and I cherish them. They aren’t perfect. But they are an expression of her and are personal and contextual.
Later, we had another lady do a series of paintings based on the sermon series. I have some of these on my office wall. I cherish these as well. One of the designers who contracts with my publishing company often does paintings for the cover, scans them in and uses those scans for the cover. I have a few of those pieces on my wall as well.
We have another lady in our church who makes jewelry. She made a thumb ring for me based on a particular love knot design and made Brenna some earrings and a ring based on the same design.
I love this kind of art for a couple of reasons:
1. It’s local
2. It’s contextual.
3. It’s personal.
4. It’s not perfect. You know, life isn’t perfect and “perfect” art doesn’t reflect reality. We are people with flaws. That’s “real” art.
5. I can show it off all the time (I wear my thumb ring daily). Read the rest of this entry »
Today, my mom, Margaret Ann Moore Phillips, turns 64. Happy Birthday Mom!
She’s been a great mom. She was, when my dad was working, my warmup catcher when I was a pitcher in Little League. She survived breast cancer in 1997. She and dad both travelled with Brenna and I when I graduated with my doctorate last May. She’s always been there for me.
This year, we’re struggling financially, and mom would not give me any ideas about a birthday gift for that reason. However, I do run a publishing company and so I have a consistant income stream there. At the same time, I was being convicted about living a more simple life, to be content with what I have instead of longing for and desiring more stuff. If I would live a more simple life, I could then give generously. So I devised a plan to kill two birds with one stone. There was a way that I could honor my mother with a continual gift that would remind me of her and her influence on my life. At the same time, there was a way that I could give in such a way to influence and invest in a life the way my mom did.
Enter Compassion International. Compassion International exists as a Christian child advocacy ministry that releases children from spiritual, economic, social and physical poverty and enables them to become responsible, fulfilled Christian adults.
Founded by the Rev. Everett Swanson in 1952, Compassion began providing Korean War orphans with food, shelter, education and health care, as well as Christian training. Today, Compassion helps more than 1 million children in 25 countries.
One of the great things about Compassion is that you are the only supporter of a child. You get to interact with the child you support through letters and pictures. In addition, you can actually visit your child on the field, which I hope to do some day.
For $38 per month, the children Compassion serves receive, among other things: the opportunity to hear the gospel and learn about Jesus; regular Christian training; educational opportunities and help; health care, hygiene training and supplementary food if necessary; a caring and safe Christian environment to grow in self-confidence and social skills; personal attention, guidance and love.
Compassion works through a one-to-one child sponsorship. A sponsor is someone who has made the decision to personally invest in the life of a child in need. Through sponsorship, children are able to participate in a church-based program that offers life-changing benefits that range from educational opportunities to health care.
Compassion focuses on individual child development rather than broader community development work. Community development is important work that addresses the external circumstances of poverty and is an important complement to our work. However, our primary focus is individual child development—an inside-out, bottom-up approach that recognizes the God-given value and potential of each individual child. Many of these children grow up to become positive influences in their own communities. However, they have discovered that changed circumstances rarely change people’s lives, while changed people inevitably change their circumstances.
With all this in mind, I went to Compassion’s website to sponsor a child. One of the options they give you in searching to sponsor a child is to search for someone with a particular birthday. Here’s where the 2 birds, one stone comes in. I searched for a child with the birthday of January 24, my mom’s birthday.
There were a couple of children who had that birthday, and I chose Karen. Karen lives in Hondouras, and is a beautiful young lady. Karen turns 9 today. She turns 9 on the same day my mother turns 64.
Since mom wouldn’t give me a suggestion for a birthday gift, I decided to honor her by supporting a child through Compassion whose birthday is the same as hers. In a way, I’m honoring my mom by doing what she has done for me over the past 40 years: support, invest, influence, pray, and love.
Let me also suggest that you sponsor a child through Compassion. They serve in Haiti, and this would be a great way to make an investment in the lives of children in this poverty-stricken country. Take a moment to watch this video about Compassion’s work in Haiti:
Ps 95:1-7 (The Message)
Come, let’s shout praises to God, raise the roof for the Rock who saved us!
Let’s march into his presence singing praises,
lifting the rafters with our hymns!
And why? Because God is the best,
High King over all the gods.
In one hand he holds deep caves and caverns,
in the other hand grasps the high mountains.
He made Ocean—he owns it!
His hands sculpted Earth!
So come, let us worship: bow before him,
on your knees before God, who made us!
Oh yes, he’s our God,
and we’re the people he pastures, the flock he feeds.
Prayer for the day: Show us your mercy, O Lord;
And grant us your salvation.
Clothe your ministers with righteousness;
Let your people sing with joy.
Give peace, O Lord, in all the world;
For only in you can we live in safety.
Lord, keep this nation under your care;
And guide us in the way of justice and truth.
Let your way be known upon earth;
Your saving health among all nations.
Let not the needy, O Lord, be forgotten;
Nor the hope of the poor be taken away.
Create in us clean hearts, O God;
And sustain us by your Holy Spirit.
Prayer for Haiti:
O Father of the poor and the oppressed: Enfold in your arms the suffering people of Haiti. Comfort those in mourning; relieve those in pain; give shelter to the homeless and hope to those in despair. Feed your people, O God, with bread both earthly and divine, and give them your water and wine. Help them bury the dead, nurse the sick and wounded, and raise their faith and dignity, for they are some of your dearest children. Silence those who falsely claim that Haiti is somehow accursed; proclaim the truth that this vibrant, creative nation still shines as a beacon of freedom throughout the Americas. And help us all, the nations of the world and the people of means, to rebuild this colorful land in the image of your Son Jesus Christ, who knows our suffering because he took our mortal pain into his own body on the Cross; then rose again to live and reign with you and the Holy Comforter. Amen.
From the Pat Robertson Haiti debacle, Jeffrey Weiss has a story entitled “Haiti and the Pat Robertson Paradox” Great thoughts on religion in America (HT: Len Sweet)
“Nearly two-thirds of those who voted for Republican Scott Brown in the Massachusetts Senate race said their vote was at least in part to make clear their opposition to the Democratic agenda in Washington.”
Between Republican Scott Brown’s surprise Senate victory over Martha Coakley in Massachusetts Tuesday night, the Supreme Court’s decision to lift campaign restrictions on corporations Thursday, Obama’s Transportation Security Administration nominee stepping down, Federal Reserve Chief Ben Bernanke’s nomination coming under fire, and even progressive radio station Air America going off the air, Obama had just come through the most bruising five days his administration, his party, and his progressive base had ever seen together.
In this study, a team of neuroscientists led by James Weimann, PhD, of Stanford Medical School focused on cells that transmit information from the brain’s cortex, some of which are responsible for muscle control. It is these neurons that are lost or damaged in spinal cord injuries and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). “These stem cell-derived neurons can grow nerve fibers between the brain’s cerebral cortex and the spinal cord, so this study confirms the use of stem cells for therapeutic goals,” Weimann said.
The parts of the brain which show signs of grid cells — the hippocampal formation and associated brain areas — are already known to help us navigate our environment and are also critical for autobiographical memory. This means that grid cells may help us to find our way to the right memory as well as finding our way through our environment. These brain areas are also amongst the first to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease which may explain why getting lost is one of the most common early symptoms of this disease.
Have you ever looked into the mirror and wondered who is staring back at you? Or longed to unite the many parts within you? The friendly one, the angry one, the resentful one, the sad one, the calm one, the impatient one, the confused one – that are all jumbled up behind a public persona that’s buffed and glossed – but tends to crack when you’re angry or upset.
27 Fitness and Fat Loss Tips. “These 27 Fitness and Fat Loss Tips will get you on the right track for this New Year”
Think you need a pizza stone to make some great homemade pizza? Megan from DIY home weblog Not Martha suggests trying your trusty cast-iron skillet before shelling out for a uni-tasking pizza stone.
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