Lessons for Living

Reflective Snippets

At the end of my print reading earlier this morning:

Love thyself last. Look near, behold thy duty
To those who walk beside thee down life’s road.
Make glad their days by little acts of beauty
And help them bear the burden of earth’s load. —Wilcox

And from my online reading:

“I’m holding one more broken piece from the edifice of pride I’ve tended around my ego….” —Tony Woodlief

“The mistake he sometimes made was in attempting to mandate others to be like him….” —Marvin Olasky

“Came away grateful despite all his sadness and torments….” (Olasky still writing about Calvin)

“Uh. . . what exactly does it mean if an oven is self-cleaning?” —Matt Smucker

I think people of peace often feel that they are not useful. I’m sure that people within the conflict often suspect that those attempting to be peacemakers don’t fully understand the conflict. When peace is always on your mind, when it is the thing you’re striving for, can you truly understand the language of those who are prolonging the conflict? —Will Loewen

What has you reflecting?

Grocery Shopping

Two important lessons, both gleaned from two different grocery stores. And extracted from my cellphone. Beneath each photo, the lesson.

Cholesterol and Fat Liberation Movement
1. Tank up on cholesterol and fat!

Think of it as the CFLM — the Cholesterol and Fat Liberation Movement.

Instead of saying cholesterol-free and fat-free in Spanish, it actually says: cholesterol liberates and fat liberates. 😯

Hence, the lesson caption above.

Alternate lesson: 1b. Have someone knowledgeable edit your translation!

Read it all

Here’s Some Dough and Bread

OK, here’s the headline: NY store owner gives would-be thief $40 and bread.

I read that and thought that sounded so Christian. And uplifting.

So I clicked to read the story, which I excerpt below.

A rifle-toting convenience store owner said he decided to show mercy on a would-be robber after seeing the man collapse into tears and claim he was only committing the crime to support his starving family.

The Long Island store owner provided the bat-wielding man with $40 and a loaf of bread and made him promise never to rob again.

Wow! Isn’t that great! (I really do need to install a thumbs-up emoticon on this blog.)

That sure beats a story I read (yesterday, I think) of a shop owner on trial for murder for repeatedly shooting an unarmed teenage wannabe robber. Anyway, I kept on reading.

“This was a grown man, crying like a baby,” Mohammad Sohail, owner of the Shirley Express convenience store….

Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrch! went my thought wheels. That sounds like a Muslim’s name!

Sohail, who moved to the United States from Pakistan about 20 years ago, said he was getting ready to close his store shortly after midnight on May 21 when the man in his 40s entered with a bat in his hand. Sohail said he tried to stall for a moment and then grabbed a rifle he keeps behind the counter and ordered the assailant to drop the bat.

The would-be thief dropped to his knees and begged for forgiveness, Sohail said.

“He started crying that he was out of work and was trying to feed his hungry family,” he said. “I felt bad for him. I mean, this wasn’t some kid.”

He said he tossed $40 to the man, who then stood up and told Sohail he was inspired by the act of mercy and wanted to become a fellow Muslim. Sohail said he led the man in a profession of Muslim faith and the two ended up shaking hands.

Hmmmmm. So what do you make of that, huh?

It’s a great, heart-warming story.

Now I hope the two men eventually choose to follow Jesus instead.

And I hope it doesn’t turn out to be an embellished tale or even a made-up one.

Redeeming Social Life Online

That’s the title of Justin Buzzard’s piece:

Like most other new things, Christians tend to either embrace Facebook uncritically, or retreat from it and condemn its use. Embracing technology uncritically—the “bear hug,” as I call it—means using a technology without thinking through its impact on yourself and others. The “cold shoulder”—ignoring/retreating from/condemning a technology—is often driven by misguided fears and shallow biblical interpretation. While the problems with embracing uncritically are more easily discerned, giving a technology like Facebook the cold shoulder also has its problems.

A pretty good piece, I would say. In it he gives nine ways to not use Facebook as well as six ways to use Facebook to love God and others, and care for your own soul.

Maybe he pushed me over the Facebook cliff. 😆

But I still say that Facebook is The Budget on steroids. If that doesn’t connect for you, it’s OK. 😉

(PS: I drafted this yesterday…then forgot to post it. 🙄 )

Picked On?

Not necessarily! Four measuring sticks to answer the question...

Everyone has felt picked on. (I assume that to be a reasonably accurate statement, don’t you?)

Too easily and too often, though, we feel picked on when we shouldn’t.

So, in the interest of clarifying that statement (as well as in the interest of helping you not feel picked on when you shouldn’t), I offer up four measuring sticks to answer this question:

Are “they” picking on you?

  1. If they are just fault-finding, yes.
  2. If they are sincerely concerned about you, no.
  3. If they want to know your view instead of assuming to know it, no.
  4. If they want you to tell them more about The Issue in order to balance their own views, no

Does that makes sense to you like it does to me?

But what if you truly are being picked on?

What are godly responses to being picked on?

  1. Pray blessing on them.
  2. Be open to what might apply to you anyway.
  3. Forgive them.
  4. Look for the opportunities to love them.
  5. Reject anger, bitterness, self-pity, vengefulness, and further fault-finding.
  6. Don’t gossip or resort to evil speaking of them.
  7. Remember: Any “lumps” you get actually are less than you deserve.

Tuesday Morning

Andrée Seu reflects over at WorldMagBlog:

On Tuesday, at 7:30 a.m., they took Marie away. I stood in my doorway peeking, like Gladys Kravitz in Bewitched. I can’t tell if they took her out dead or alive. When the ambulance came for my husband, they brought his remains downstairs in a black zippered bag, but Marie’s stretcher looked white, so she may still be alive. They had told her three-and-a-half years, and it’s been three-and-a-half years. I wonder how they know such things.

I prayed in the doorway but felt like an idiot.
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Above all, love God!