Church Life
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What I’ve Learned About Myself While I’ve Been Quarantined
This has been one of the most interesting (and often unpleasant) times in my life. I have no memory of ever living through a pandemic. From what the news says, maybe I have and just didn’t know it because we weren’t directed to “shelter in place” like we have been for the last four to five weeks. I’ve learned some things about myself and thought they might be interesting to share. You might like to make a list of your own. When these restrictions are lifted, I plan to look at my list on occasion to see how well I am doing with remembering what I learned. Here are just five of the…
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Critical Thinking
I am typing these words not long after sending a text to somebody who “got slammed” by some people because of a Facebook post. To be fair, some people were complementary of what was posted, but some were not. Some were even, in my opinion, very unkind. The response I received to my text indicated the motive behind the original post. In part, the text read: I was trying to invoke critical thinking. I’m not really sure where my response to that text came from. It just kind of popped into my mind. For what it’s worth, here it is: Some should do a lot more thinking before – or instead of – being critical.…
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All We Like Sheep…
There’s an old comedy bit that has been used countless times. A person says something like, “I broke my arm twice in the same place,” and the other responds, “Quit going to that place.” Sometimes that joke hits close to home with how we live our spiritual lives, but the actions of some sheep in England may hit even closer to home. A fire and rescue service near Coates was recently called to save a sheep that had wandered into a muddy low-lying area near a river and become stuck late one evening. The workers did the necessary work and the sheep was brought out. However, the very next afternoon,…
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Somebody Else May Be Struggling During the Funeral
Who do you try to comfort when you visit a funeral home or attend a funeral service? For whom do you pray? I’m sure that most of us would say that we pray for the spouse, the parents, the children, other family members, and very close friends of the deceased. We know that they are hurting. We know that they are going through a very difficult time. We search for the right words. We certainly do not want to say the wrong thing. We try to think of ways to help. We absolutely do not want to do something that would make matters worse for them. Even if we cannot come up with what…
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The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow
“The sun’ll come out tomorrow, bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun.” Annie, an orphan, sang these words in the 1982 movie by the same name – Annie. She sang them while she was living in an orphanage with a monster of a head mistress – Miss Hannigan. What prompted her sunny attitude was the belief that she had been left at the orphanage by mistake. It’s a great movie about a little girl with a positive attitude and how deeply ingrained her belief is that better days are ahead. Many of us have been quarantined for quite a number of days and some of those days have been cloudy and rainy…
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The Only Place for Put-Downs
A little good natured ribbing is just part of life. We do dumb things sometimes, and we need to learn to laugh at ourselves when we do. And, if we’re honest, we have people close to us who we love, in part, because they make us laugh at ourselves. But we also know that there is a difference between a good natured ribbing and a true put-down. When we put someone down, well, just look at the word. We are making ourselves seem superior and the other person inferior just because. We are making them feel dumb or ugly or uncool for no real reason, or for a reason that…
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When Statistics Aren’t Statistics
Most of us have heard the old adage that goes something like this: Figures can’t lie, but liars can figure. I guess that this is supposed to encourage us to be discerning when we hear and/or read about various statistics. On one hand, the statistics we are looking at may be totally factual. On the other hand, somebody may be trying to twist or “interpret” them because they have an agenda. Some statistics are, indeed, “just the facts.” Things like physical distances, population numbers, and a host of other things are just what they are. There doesn’t need to be any interpretation, explanation, analysis, etc. However, when it comes to other matters, the…
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Episode 134: Our Social Distancing Thankful List
https://media.blubrry.com/faughnfamily/content.blubrry.com/faughnfamily/Legacy_Podcast_134.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: RSS (Player not displaying or working? Click here to listen.) Each year in November, we share our “thankful list” for the year. But with so much bad news going around, we thought it would be encouraging to share some things we are thankful for during this time of stress and isolation. Maybe this will encourage you to start your own list.
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During Covid-19 (and Beyond), Please Stop Posting…
Social media is on fire with traffic. While that is always the case, the fact that many people have more time at home is causing many to consume more social media, interact more on social media, and share more on social media. In a lot of ways, that is good. We can gain some encouragement, teach the Gospel, and simply interact with people in ways that help us be uplifted and to have some level of attachment that we are missing. However, in our flurry to post–especially about the coronavirus–we can begin to share things that not only fail to help, they can be downright dangerous. The thing is, though,…
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People of the Pendulum
I wish I could remember where I heard the expression and who said it, but I remember hearing somebody using the phrase “people of the pendulum.” What I do remember is that statement was not made about any particular group of people. Instead, the phrase was used in a way that was meant to communicate that all of us have a tendency to swing from one extreme to another. I am typing these words as the 2020 political season is heating up. In the opinion of some observers we are more polarized politically than we have been in previous years. It seems to some that we have gotten to the point that to…
