Parrot stewardship

Suzi Orman is a financial guru. She regularly tells people how to have more money. One of the things that fascinates me about Suzi Orman is that she tells people, “You must give away a significant amount of your money to someone else. Someone who is not related to you. Someone for whom you are not obligated to care.”

She tells this story to illustrate her point. In Mexico in the Mercado, she saw a man who was selling parrots. All of the parrots were perched with no cages, yet the parrots were not flying away. Suzi talked to the man to find out how he could keep the birds from flying away. He told her that he trained them to believe that if they let go of the perch they would die. Suzi says, “And that’s how we are about our money. We clutch it so tightly that we believe that if we let go of it we will die. However, what we need to realize is that it is only when we open our hands to give away what we hold so dear that our hand is open to receive the gifts that can come to us. We cannot receive anything with closed fists. Only open hands can give and receive.”

I find it fascinating that a completely secular financial guru gives advice that has such a profoundly religious basis. When we focus on hanging onto our stuff, we make our stuff our God. When we listen deeply and intently for God’s voice regarding the use of the stuff, we discover that God provides.

dormant

I realize that, like many, I have invested much more time in twitter and facebook than in this blog. While I don't always appreciate the constriction of 140 characters, I have become fairly adept at expressing myself within the constriction. The "payoff" is a more immediate response and high interactivity. Those are huge dividends for this extrovert. All that is to say, while I highly value those venues, I don't want to let go of this one. So, to the one reader who checks regularly, here is a post. And when I go months without posting, remember that this blog may be dormant but it has not been abandoned completely.

Fearless by Max Lucado

I signed up to review books for Thomas Nelson. I'm kind of concerned about maintaining this blog as anonymous because of their sign up process and publishing requirements. But, nevertheless, I entered an agreement to read, review, and post in return for the free book. So, here's the review.


The best part of Fearless is exactly what is best in all of Max Lucado’s books: namely, great stories, vivid descriptions to make a point, and an easy read full of a God of love and grace. Lucado describes well the experience of many today, “Fear, it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop” (p. 5). It was via Twitter that I first read Lucado’s response to the shop set up by fear. “Fear never wrote a symphony or poem, negotiated a peace treaty, or cured a disease” (p. 5). Throughout the book, Lucado vividly describes the desolate and desperate landscape that over exaggerated fear says is our home then he reminds us that our home is created not by hands but eternal in heaven. For every tremor of fear, we have a God who repeatedly and continuously says, “Do not fear.” “For God has not given us a spirit of fear” (2 Tim. 1:7).

I have one major complaint about how Lucado addresses a grieving parent and the questions that come in the face of grief. He says that God understands because, “He buried a child too” (p. 61). I completely agree that God knows humans more fully and more compassionately than any other human can but I do not agree that God should be equated with humans in levels of grief. God is so much more powerful than any human and had options available that no human parent has. God’s choice to not use the power and options available does not equate to the depths of grief of a parent who has no options and no power. Further, while death is a transition to heaven, to say “For those who trust God, death is nothing more[emphasis mine] than a transition to heaven” (p. 64) sounds dismissive of those Christians who do trust God and, at the same time, have profound and devastating grief. The Psalms of lament might be a better choice for acknowledging the depths of grief and profound trust simultaneously.

However, even with this complaint, I think this book is a terrific reminder that “perfect love casts out fear” (I John 4:18). Regardless of the circumstances, God is with us, we are not alone.

Give me Jesus

As I'm working on the texts for Sunday, with Jarius and his many resources, as well as, the bleeding woman and her few resources, I keep hearing this hymn. Where ever you are on the social ladder, what ever your situation in live, our hope is in the living Christ. Give me Jesus

RevGalBlogPals Friday Five: Friends

Friday Five: Friends as posted by Jan

Ever since I found out I could be the hostess for the third Friday Five of each month, I have not been able to get the thought of friends out of my mind. Being an only child (all growed up) who moved around a lot in my lifetime, friends have always been very important to me. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "The way to have a friend is to be a friend."

So today let's write about the different kinds of friends we have, like childhood friends, lost friends, tennis friends, work friends, and the list goes on. List 5 different types of friends you have had in your life and what they were/are like.

As a bonus, put a link to a new (to you) blogging friend and introduce us!

1. Friends from "back home" I've lost touch with most of them except that a certain well know social networking site has brought some of them back into my life. It happens that I attended K-12 in a school system with only one each of elementary, jr high, & high school. There are 12 of us who went through all those grades together. And, yet, upon graduation, I lost touch with them. So that time suck social network site has brought back some folks.

2. Camp friends Starting in 4th grade I went to church camp every summer and even went as an adult while in college. I really appreciated some of those intense one week friendships. A few lasted a little longer through letters or occasional phone calls. I am amazed at the impact those folks had.

3. nearby clergy friends I have intentionally worked to have friends but in the circles I travel that means mostly clergy. I am grateful for my Lectionary Lunch group and other F2F clergy who are friends.

4. friends who were there For many different reasons during different seasons of my life, there have been the friends who were there. These days I don't talk to any of them very often but they still count as my closest friends because they already know the story from living it with me.

5. technologically connected friends Not surprisingly, there are RevGalBlogPals whom I consider friends. I also have folks that are on other technologically enabled means of connection that I consider, if not friends, close aquaintances. I've been on some preacher-type email lists since 98 or 99 and recognize the personalities even if I could not pick them out of a crowd of 3. Even without the visual, or in real life, connection, I consider them a part of my life, too. I have cried at the deaths of folks I only knew through the internet so I think they count.

Bonus, minus: I added a couple of folks that I follow because of BE 2.0 but I can't get the link to post correctly.