Carlyle Marney Facebook page

I just created a fan page on Facebook for Carlyle Marney. http://snipurl.com/kxf90 I was fortunate to have known of him and then to spend a week with him the summer of 1977 - a year before he died and a month after my father died. I talked with Marney about Dad's passion, vision, ministry and sacrifice for the Gospel and my own (I had just been ordained a year earlier and was struggling through a difficult first church!). It was a time of pure grace and sabbath and yet vision and hope in Christ. It is a place to go to more often. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Carlyle-Marney/97063128255?ref=nf

manifesto on Jesus

A Jesus Manifesto by Len Sweet and Frank Viola. This expresses to the core my own belief and concern. I see in the UCC how we have fallen prey to what they describe. How we have watered down Jesus. Its what E. Stanley Jones said after conversation with Gandhi about the lack of growth of Christianity in India in the mid 1940's. Basically, Gandhi said that Christians didn't act like they truly believed in Jesus Christ. They had turned Jesus into a reflection of themselves and what would fit for them rather than turning their lives over to Jesus Christ. The American church has about reached the end of its rope on adulterating Christ to serve itself. It has come back on us and the world yearns to know the truth about Jesus, not about us and our churches. A Jesus Manifesto Len Sweet Frank Viola United Church of Christ

family life

In April on Earth Day Martha & I celebrated 20 years of marriage also known as falling in love. On the 5th Molly turned 16. Today Kate 19. Molly is dancing today between innings for the Akron Racers professional softball game. She had a great recital where she danced in 11 dances from ballet to hip hop. She finished up a pretty good spring soccer season. Kate made 4.0+ & Dean's list both semesters at Heidelberg. She is officially a Jr after one yr. Both girls are nannying for the summer.

living in the world

Sunday for the Vision I used the passage from 1 John 2:12-17. It includes in it (from The Message) ^15-17Don't love the world's ways. Don't love the world's goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.

Then I quoted from an article from Walter Brueggeman (who was my prof of OT in seminary), "Enough is Enough." It seems like everything I am reading in scripture and otherwise is pointing to this same core, especially at a time that the "world" is working overtime to try to get control of itself.

I think we are all -liberal and conservative - trying to change the world on the world's terms. Many churches are trying to convince the world of Jesus, on the world's terms. There are periods of "success", but eventually it leads to frustration because it can't be sustained. We are looking for eternal answers with short-term, worldly fixes. Jesus teaches via the Sermon on the Mount in a place away or a quiet place. This sermon is great teaching and it could only soak it beyond the tired brain cells of the disciples, on retreat. We live in a "world" that needs more retreat from it so we can serve in it.

I've been reading again the small book by JB Phillips, "Your God Is Too Small." This is from it in reflecting on the Beatitudes:
"Happy are the pushers: for they get on in the world.
Happy are the hard-boiled: for they never let life hurt them.
Happy are those who complain: for they get their own way in the end.
Happy are the blase': for they never worry over their sins.
Happy are the slave-drivers: for they get results.
Happy are the knowledgeable (humans) of the world: for they know their way around.
Happy are the trouble-makers: for people have to take notice of them.

"Jesus Christ said:

Happy are those who realize their spiritual poverty: they have already entered the kingdom of Reality.
Happy are they who bear their share of the world's pain: in the long run they will know more happiness than those who avoid it.
Happy are those who accept life and their own limitations: they will find more in life than anybody.
Happy are those who long to be truly 'good': they will fully realize their ambition.
Happy are those who are ready to make allowances and to forgive: they will know the love of God.
Happy are those who are real in their thoughts and feelings: in the end they will see the ultimate Reality, God.
Happy are those who help others to live together: they will be known to be doing God's work."

I like Eugene Peterson's version in The Message:
"Arriving at a quiet place, he sat down and taught his climbing companions. This is what he said:

³"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

⁴"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

⁵"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

⁶"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.

⁷"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.

⁸"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.

⁹"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.

¹⁰"You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.

^11-12"Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble."

David Loar, Fairlawn West United Church of Christ, Akron Ohio church consumed by the world of wanting and getting

where am I headed with my life?

Galatians 2:19-21 (The Message)

^19-21What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

Philippians 1:21-22 (The Message)

Every time one of them opens his mouth, Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on!

And I'm going to keep that celebration going because I know how it's going to turn out. Through your faithful prayers and the generous response of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, everything he wants to do in and through me will be done. I can hardly wait to continue on my course. I don't expect to be embarrassed in the least. On the contrary, everything happening to me in this jail only serves to make Christ more accurately known, regardless of whether I live or die. They didn't shut me up; they gave me a pulpit! Alive, I'm Christ's messenger; dead, I'm his bounty. Life versus even more life! I can't lose.

As long as I'm alive in this body, there is good work for me to do.

David Loar, Fairlawn West United Church of Christ, Akron, Ohio not about me