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Book_K
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Interests: BOOOOOOOOKS, DUH!
Expertise: BOOOOOOOKS, DUH!
(Did someone do this for me?!?)
Occupation: Education/training
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Member Since:
12/9/2005
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| Are you reading this??? From what I hear the first edition is entirely sold out. There are no more to be had anywhere! And I have one! Tee Hee! It's really good too! Ahhhhhhh! We just finished ordering, shrinkwrapping, packing, shipping, and making an inventory of about $50,000 worth of books to go overseas....whew! That is a job...especially when a bunch of titles are out of print! May the Lord be pleased to use them to speak to hearts about HIM! | | |
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Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed!
I recently read this incredible excerpt from Art for God's Sake by
Philip Graham Ryken that gave me a whole new way of thinking about the finished
work of Christ. I thought I'd share it with you on this joyous day!
"If God has such a passion for the arts, then we should expect him to
reveal his artistry in the plan of salvation. But here we come up against a
shocking reality, namely, that the center of God's masterpiece of salvation was
an event of appalling ugliness and degradation. This masterpiece was the cross
where Christ was crucified for sin, and there was nothing beautiful about it, at
least not in physical terms. The crucifixion was an ugly, ugly obscenity - a
twisting bleeding body of pain. As Isaiah wrote, concerning the crucified
Christ:
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance
that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of
sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces
he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and
carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and
afflicted. (Isaiah 53:2-4)
God sent his Son to be our Savior: that was the plan. But what God sent
him to do was grotesque. How can we explain this? Why would the God of all
glory and beauty do something so ugly, and then make us look to it for our
salvation? The cross screams against all the sensibilities of his divine
aesthetic.
God did this because it was the only way that he could save us. Sin had
brought ugliness and death into the world. In order to save his lost creation,
God sent his Son right into all the absurdity and alienation. There Jesus took
our sin upon himself, dying to pay the price that justice demanded. It was such
an ugly death that people had to turn away. Not even God himself could bear to
see the sin that Jesus carried, as we know from the darkness that descended over
the cross (Mt. 27:45) and from Jesus' cry of dereliction: "My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? (Mt. 27:46)
This is not how the story ends however. God did not simply leave his Son
in death and decay. No, he's much too good an artist for that. His design was
to transform ugliness into beauty. He did this first with the body of his Son,
raising Jesus from the dead and giving him a glorious resurrection body more
beautiful than anything we can imagine. That body still bears the marks of the
crucifixion. We know this because Jesus invited his disciples to touch the
places where he had been pierced (John 20:27) But those ugly wounds have been
transformed into glory. The hymn-writer Matthew Bridges described it well:
"behold his hands and side, rich wounds, yet visible above, in beauty
glorified." For all eternity the body of Jesus will bear reminders of the
suffering he endured for sin - now transformed into glorious beauty, and
worshiped with an everlasting symphony of praise." | | |
| Fulfilling a request....posting one of my favorite poems!!! Life is good....I love our new church! It is blessing upon blessing, grace upon grace as my friend Brandon explains. We have our first official service on Sunday though we have been meeting since early December. How I wonder what the Lord will do!!!
Brendan's Voyage
Shall I abandon O King of mysteries the soft comforts of home,
The ease of hearth and board, shall I turn my back on my native land,
and turn my face towards the sea, and turn my affections to the unknown,
and rest my heart in You alone.
Shall I put myself wholly at Your mercy, without silver, without a horse, without fame, without honor,
Shall I throw myself wholly on You without sword, without shield,
without food and drink, without a bed to lie on.
Shall I say farewell to my beautiful land, placing myself under Your yoke, trusting my all in Your thrall.
Shall I pour out my heart to You confessing my manifold sins and begging forgiveness,
tears streaming down my face.
Shall I leave the prince of my knees on the sandy beach, a record of my final prayer in my native land.
Shall I then suffer every kind of wound that the sea can afflict uncertain at the dawn, unsure at the dusk, unsettled at the dark.
Shall I take my tiny boat across the wide, sparkling ocean.
O King of the glorious heaven, shall I go of my own choice upon the sea.
O Christ, will you help me on the wild waves,
O Christ will you make me your adventurer,
O Christ will you show me the way!
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| Life always has its interesting moments....As my husband was flying away on a plane and my eldest son was on a business trip, my hot water heater decided to explode flooding our basement and garages where a large number of my books and other stuff is located. Thankfully most of them were in Rubbermaid totes....or I'd be crying...but nonetheless I have been cleaning and moving and sorting and throwing for three days straight till about 3 AM. How fun!!!
The book I'm reading is very, very interesting and well written. If you decide to pick it up...don't read the back cover. Hint: It is a Civil War novel. Very interesting way of looking at it too!!!
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| Reading....lots of reading to do. Bible reading, church reading, class reading, lots and lots of work reading, and ohhhh fun reading. I love it....there is just never enough time to squeeze it all in. So many books, so little time!!
Beware of the man of one book.
~ Anonymous ~
Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life.
~ Mortimer J. Adler ~
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be
chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts,
others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly,
and with diligence and attention.
~ Francis Bacon ~
He that loves a book will never want a faithful friend,
a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter.
By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently
divert and pleasantly entertain himself,
as in all weathers, as in all fortunes.
~ Barrow ~
Where is human nature so weak as in the
bookstore?
~ Henry Ward Beecher ~
I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.
Jorge Luis Borges
You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture.
Just get people to stop reading them.
~ Ray Bradbury ~
A good book is the purest essence of a human
soul.
~ Thomas Carlyle ~
The mere brute pleasure of reading
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the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
~ Gilbert K. Chesterton ~
A book is like a garden carried in the pocket.
~ Chinese proverb ~
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Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune,
a genuine and passionate love of reading.
~ Rufus Choate ~
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A room without books is like a body without a soul.
~ Marcus T. Cicero ~
often feel sorry for people who don't read good books;
they are missing a chance to lead an extra life.
~ Scott Corbett ~ |
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The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man:
nothing else that he builds ever lasts monuments fall; nations perish;
civilization grow old and die out; new races build others.
But in the world of books are volumes that have seen
this happen again and again and yet live on.
Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written,
still telling men's hearts, of the hearts of men centuries dead.
~ Clarence Day ~
When I get a little money, I buy books;
and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.
~ Desiderius Erasmus 1466-1536 ~
The greatest gift is the passion for reading.
It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites,
it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind.
It is a moral illumination.
~ Elizabeth Hardwick ~
Deep versed in books and shallow in himself.
~ John Milton ~
All books are divisible into two classes,
the books of the hour, and the books of all time.
~ John Ruskin ~
Books are the treasured wealth of the world
and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.
~ Henry David Thoreau ~
No man can be called friendless who has God
and the companionship of good books.
~Elizabeth Barrett Browning~
Bread of flour is good; but there is bread,
sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a good book.
~John Ruskin~
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