eBay item 4146756343 (Ends Apr-28-04 15:37:01 PDT) - SIZE 12 WEDDING DRESS/GOWN NO RESERVE
This guy has gotten a lot of attention lately. This is one of the funniest things I have read in a long time! He needs to be a blogger!

[Listening to: Jesus Is For Losers - Steve Taylor - Squint (4:18)]

Leadership Network - Archives:

The New Sunbelt

Beyond the old north to south migration, Frey calls the New Sunbelt ?the American suburbs.? It has 13 states and while it contains only about 20% of the population, it includes the states growing the fastest by domestic migration. These areas are particularly growing in young adults and retiree populations. Also in this region, the fastest growing areas are suburbs, exurbs and smaller metro areas. States in the New Sunbelt include AZ, CO, DE, GA, ID, NC, NV, OR, SC, TN, UT, VA, WA...

Each region has different predominant characteristics. Don’t assume that an approach that works well in one region will work equally well in another.

New Sunbelt States
As Frey suggests, these states are the most “suburban” in mindset. Churches using the strategies pioneered over the last 20 years in suburbs could do well.


Additionally there is opportunity to plant churches targeting seekers, gen-x adults, and retirees.


An opportunity may exist to plant new churches in smaller metro areas. In many cases, the largest churches in smaller metro areas are relatively new churches.

Very interesting article. Find your region and think through the implications for you and your church.

[Listening to: Who Needs Sleep? - Barenaked Ladies - Stunt (3:44)]

The New York Times > Opinion > The President's Testimony:

The strangest of the president's conditions is that he will testify only in concert with Vice President Dick Cheney.

I don't understand what Bush is thinking on this one!

I am an independent. In many ways, like many postmoderns, my politics feel like they transcend the traditional categories of republican/democrate and liberal/conservative. One of my elders said he couldn't figure me out whether I am liberal or conservative. Cool. Keep 'em guessing and keep challenging them in the process.

[Listening to: The Finish Line - Steve Taylor - Squint (5:28)]

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Playing Catch-Up on the Console:

To topple Sony from its No. 1 position any time soon would be a 'titanic event, up there with the fishes and loaves on the all-time miracle list,' he said.

From the random biblical allusions file.

[Listening to: When I Believe It - Dogs of Peace - Speak (5:00)]

Found some fun plug-ins for posting what I am listening to on my blog. I'll play with it a few days and see how I like it.

[Listening to: Apple A Day - David Wilcox - Into The Mystery (3:40)]

From Final Gifts

Respond to anything you don't understand with gentle inquiries. "Can you tell me what's happening?" is sometimes a helpful way to initiate this kind of conversation. You might also try saying, "You seem different today. Can you tell me why?"

Pose questions in open-ended, encouraging terms. For example, if a dying person whose mother is long dead says, "My mother's waiting for me," turn that comment into a question: "Mother's waiting for you?" or "I'm so glad she's close to you. Can you tell me about it?"

Accept and validate what the dying person tells you. If he says, "I see a beautiful place!" say, "I'm so pleased. I can see that it makes you happy," or "I'm glad you're telling me this. I really want to understand what's happening to you. Can you tell me more?"

Don't argue or challenge. By saying something like, "You couldn't possibly have seen Mother, she's been dead for ten years," you could increase the dying person's frustration and isolation, and run the risk of putting an end to further attempts at communicating.

Remember that a dying person may employ images from life experiences like work or hobbies. A pilot may talk about getting ready to go for a flight; carry the metaphor forward: "Do you know when it leaves?" or "Is there anyone on the plane you know?" or "Is there anything I can do to help you get ready for takeoff?"

Be honest about having trouble understanding. One way is to say, "I think you're trying to tell me something important and I'm trying very hard, but I'm just not getting it. I'll keep on trying. Please don't give up on me."

Don't push. Let the dying control the breadth and depth of the conversation-they may not be able to put their experiences into words; insisting on more talk may frustrate or overwhelm them.

Avoid instilling a sense of failure in the dying person. If the information is garbled or the delivery impossibly vague, show that you appreciate the effort by saying, "I can see that this is hard for you; I can see you're getting tired/angry/frustrated. Would it be easier if we talked about this later?" or "Don't worry. We'll keep trying and maybe it will come."

If you don't know what to say, don't say anything. Sometimes the best response is simply to touch the dying person's hand, or smile and stroke his or her forehead. Touching gives the very important message, "I'm with you." Or you could say, "That's interesting, let me think about it."

Remember that sometimes the one dying picks an unlikely confidant. Dying people often try to communicate important information to someone who makes them feel safe-who won't get upset or be taken aback by such confidences. If you're an outsider chosen for this role, share the information as gently and completely as possible with the appropriate family members or friends. They may be more familiar with innuendos in a message because they know the person well.

This is a great book for anyone who works with dying people or if you have someone you love suffering from a terminal illness.

Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox:

How does God want us to deal with intimidating people?
2 Timothy 1:7 (Good News) gives us the answer: 'For the spirit that God has given us does not make us timid. Instead his spirit fills us with power, love, and self control.'
That's the way God wants you to deal with people. He wants you to deal with them in power (confidence), in love (focusing on their needs), and in self-control. God's Spirit doesn't make us timid. It doesn't turn us into weaklings.
The Phillips translation of this verse says, 'God has not given us the spirit of cowardice.' The Living Bible version says, 'God doesn't want you to be afraid of people.'
Yet, I know Christians all the time who unconsciously think, 'I have to be afraid of people in order to be spiritual. I just have to let people have their own way.' If you'll look at the Bible, you'll see that's not the case.
You won't please everyone. That's a fact. So stop trying! When those difficult people come along, hold your ground, pray for those who persecute you, and leave the rest to God.

In light of some difficult things going on recently in my ministry and our town, this is a very helpful article for me today!

In many ways, I wish I could be more open and transparent in this blog. Yet I am fearful. I am fearful of people. I pastor in a small town (pop. 2000) and word gets around quickly. Plus it is a very old school, modern mindset that doesn't welcome openness, struggle, journeying. Everyone would rather be seen as having it all together. So what if everyone discovered that the pastor doesn't have it all together? In fact you could read the same statement this way: So what if everyone discovered that the pastor doesn't have it all together!

The funny thing is, I seek to debunk this idea each week. Most Sunday's in my sermons, I put myself in my place. I think this is important in all communication and especially for church leaders. We need to be put in our place; fellow strugglers, fellow sinners, fellow humans. After all the church is the only organization that our membership is dependent upon our failure and our admission of that failure.

I think the emerging church understands this better than many modern churches. As the associate pastor at the church I grew up at used to say: "we're all bozos on this bus."

The New York Times > Opinion > Those Illegal Farm Subsidies
This is not going to be popular out here!

Yet the practice of farm subsidies is a huge problem and a very disturbing practice.

However, even with huge subsidies, farmers are regularly "going out of business" here in our county. We are in the midst of a severe drought and many farmers are unable to make a go any more. Here in Wray, there used to be a family farmer on every section. Now, most of those families are gone. The population of our town is aging and the entire town is in a slow decline.

So far we have been unable to bring some light manufacturing jobs to the area. Something is going to have to give.

The latest works
Cool optical illusions! Check it out.

Pointed to by Marc's Productivity Blog.

Our county has 25 churches in it. Our county's population is around 9700. Therefore, each of our churches in our county would need to have nearly 400 people attending for everyone in our county to go to church. Yet the largest church in our county can seat about 250-300.

I know church attendance isn't THE measurement for spiritual growth or spirituality. Yet I can't help but to feel a little discouraged by these statistics.

Especially sad is the amount of young people attending church. I recently read a statistic that 4% of those born after 1982 attend church. WOW! The writing is on the wall. Are we bothering to read it?

Tomorrow we will be going to Denver for a couple of days. I haven't had to put gas in my car since March 9! This small town living has its advantages!

The Executive Presbyter came out last week and met with me. We had a good visit. Yet it was discouraging in some ways. Our Presbyterian Church has 58 active members. We aren't experiencing many new faces either. Apparently, statistics show that churches like this will decline by 40% every decade.

My math is horrible but I think that means that in 10 years the membership will be down to 35 and in 20 years the membership will be down to 21! Ouch!

Maybe we aren't doing something right. Maybe our culture is changing. Maybe it's both!

4.20 We remember. God give us peace.

The New York Times > Science > Vast and Deadly Fleets May Yield Secrets at Last:

The Persian Wars may be famed in history, but few artifacts and material remains have emerged

The opening line from this article caught my eye this morning because I am currently working on a seminar discussing The DaVinci Code. One comment that always fascinates me is that the Bible is not a historically accurate document.

Now I know postmodern apologists (is there such a thing?) are not terribly concerned with the historicity of the Bible. This concern smacks of foundationalism. Yet at some point we must argue that there is some historical integerity to the Bible.

And the evidence for the historical reliability far out paces the evidence for the Persian Wars. Yet who would doubt the reality of the Persian Wars?

Rhythms of Contemplative Prayer
Great post and thoughts on contemplative prayer.

The New York Times > National > A Memorial for Columbine Hits a Snag:

Columbine will not hold classes on Tuesday, but parents who lost children will be allowed into the building as they have been on past anniversaries

Five years ago on Tuesday, I was a youth pastor at Centennial Community Church just a few miles from Columbine. Our youth program had 20 or so students who attended Columbine. I was attending Denver Seminary finishing my last semester on my MDiv. program when it happened.

The scene that day was surreal. And the impact of that dreadful day is unfathomable.

Fortunately, our church did not lose a single kid that day. But two churches on the same corner did. West Bowles Community Church is where Cassie Bernall went to church. Foothills Bible Church also lost a student in the massacre.

I am thankful that we didn't loose any kids that day. But I also know that many of them will be haunted by the memories from that day. One young girl from our youth group was in the room were Dave Sanders bled to death. Several others hid in the choir room until the SWAT team came in and rescued them several hours later.

At summer camp that year, several of the kids were running and playing, doing what high school kids do. I was outside talking to a girl who had survived Columbine hiding in the choir room. Then a group of kids came running out of the building chasing one another yelling and having a good time. The girl I was speaking to, fell to the ground. She was terrified. Kids running from a building screaming had triggered her memories of that day.

There are so many more stories I could tell. Waiting for kids at Leawood Elementary. The sheriff's announcement to the waiting parents that there are fatalities. The coroner asking parents to give a description of their child and to give them dental records. The feeling of leaving the school knowing that so many parents were going home knowing that their child lay dead in a high school building. So many stories from that day...

My prayers are with all of the survivors, their families, and the victim's families this week. May the Lord bless you and keep you, may he turn his face toward you and give you peace. Amen.

This week's sermon passage is really challenging when it comes to evangelism. I am still trying to get my mind around what evangelism will look like in a postmodern church context. Brian McLaren's character Neo, from A New Kind of Christian encourages us to count conversations rather than conversions. Yet the urgency I see in the book of Acts with the apostles witnessing seems to be more intense than I see in much of postmodern/emerging church thought.

Here is a quote from the NIVAC commentary on Acts by Ajith Fernando:

This whole passage pulsates with the urgency of the evangelistic task. The apostles are arrested for evangelizing (Acts 5:18). But after their miraculous release the angel tells them to go to the center of Jewish religion, the temple, and proclaim "the full message"; they are not to give in to the temptation to compromise it (Acts 5:20). The divine encouragement to persist in witness in spite of threats is a recurrent theme in Acts (Acts 4:31; Acts 18:9, 10; Acts 23:11). This not only shows how important witness is, but also that people need constant encouragement, for it is easy to lose passion for evangelism, especially in the face of opposition.

When the apostles are rearrested and asked to explain their actions, they use the opportunity to proclaim the message, not try to secure a release (Acts 5:29-39). This method of witness has been used throughout history. Christianity is a religion with a message, a message so important that it simply must be shared to all who live on earth. God's salvation in Christ is the answer of the Creator of the world to its basic problems. If it is that urgent, then every human being should be told this good news. Thus, when people bring us to trial for preaching, we must explain God's message. Both Stephen and Paul did this when they were brought to trial (Acts 7:2-53; Acts 24:25; Acts 26:2-29).

Is the postmodern, emerging church urgent enough in its aproach to evangelism? Are we passionate enough about the Good News of Jesus Christ?

I know that we must be sensitive to our audience. I am turned off by much of evangelicalism's attempts at evangelism. I am deeply troubled by the reductionistic approach to the gospel which often misses the point and fails to change lives. But one thing that is true of much of evangelicalism is the sense of urgency.

Fernando goes on to say this:

Evangelism also influences our attitude toward success on earth. From Acts it is clear that suffering is an essential feature of effective evangelism. In this passage the suffering of shame (flogging is a humiliating experience) because of faithful witness is an honor worth rejoicing about (Acts 5:41). What the world considers as failure we may consider as success if it furthers the cause of evangelism and, as here, demonstrates our loyalty to Christ. We must always look at life with evangelistic eyes and be incessantly involved in evangelism. Even if we are brought to trial, we must use it as an opportunity to witness for Christ. If we are dishonored because of evangelism, we can view that dishonor as a great honor.

I agree that suffering is clearly to be expected by Christians and often our culture of pain avoidance influences what we followers of Christ deem as success. Our churches often define success by bodies, bucks, and bricks. Suffering is not part of the equation.

Yet I struggle with the reductionistic idea that "we must always look at life with evangelistic eyes." Here is the crux of my struggle. To look at life this way will cause one to be urgent. But is evangelism the end all be all of life? Don't get me wrong; my evangelical upbringing is still strong and I feel that evangelism is of great importance. But I also think that God is very concerned with my spiritual growth. Perhaps this is the answer to my dilemma. Perhaps greater spiritual maturity brings extra urgency to witness. What I mean is that witness becomes a natural outgrowth of spiritual maturity. And the lack of spiritual maturity in so many Christians today leads the modern church to create programs to entice conversions.

Let's go and make disciples not programs!

MSNBC - Girl, 6, recovering from 10-day crash ordeal:

A 6-year-old girl who survived 10 days in a crashed car, nourished only by dry noodles and Gatorade, was recovering from dehydration as her family marveled at her resilience and mourned the death of her mother.

Having a five year old son and a four year old daughter, this story is gut wrenching for me.

OnlineRev - Partnering With Pastors:
New Job Descriptions for the emerging Church

by Leonard Sweet

This isn't an easy time to pastor a congregation. I have utmost sympathy for those who are having trouble making the transition to ministry in the emerging culture.

Once something sinks into the skull, it's hard to get it out and embrace a contrary idea. New modes of worship come easier for some than others. This suggested list of “worship positions” in the emerging church is no doubt old hat to those of you who've been moving in these directions for years. But for some of us, it will be a stretch to transition our ministry to embrace these possibilities:

Ushers—an usher used to escort people to their seats, where they were enjoined to sit down, be still, and keep silent. But a true usher has the sacred role of ushering people into the presence of God. An usher is the name of every member of the worship design team. The “head usher” is who used to be called the worship leader, who's now less a moderator of order or a human metronome keeping everybody together than a participation artist.
Curators—a new position which is already manifesting itself in what the English call alt.worship (alternative worship) circles. A curator is a servant of the people who curates (not leads) worship by functioning as an “installer of art and creator of an environment that is conducive to experiencing God” (see Andrew Jones, “Is This the Next New Worship?” FaithWorks).
Concierges—experts in the art of hospitality, replacing what used to be called the church host or hostess. George Hunter's right when he says that the presence of church visitors is “the most misperceived signal in local churches today, and the church's most neglected opportunity” (The Celtic Way of Evangelism). But concierges need to be employed for members as well, resolving problems, handling complaints, and managing “moments of truth.”
Servers—people who put the service in “worship service.” Instead of bringing people to their pews, servers bring coffee, handouts, artworks, and other necessary instruments to the people, who are increasingly at tables or in other conducive seating arrangements to fit the worship experience. Servers build a service culture in the church at every point of contact (starting in the parking lot), and mentor others in service training.
Sommelier—more than a fancy name for “wine steward,” this is a person whose ministry is to know each member of the congregation intimately, and find creative and original ways to personalize the church's ministries and make people feel at home.

Instead of lumping everyone together as nameless “volunteers” (how I hate that word) or “unpaid servants” or even “ministers,” the church needs a vocabulary of respect and nuance that names people's ministries. What other ones would you suggest?

Great article! I like the position of liturgist that Brian McLaren has often discussed. Good Friday services are a great example of the opportunity and need for liturgists.

Here in Wray, we had a Good Friday service at the Presbyterian church. We included readings from Jesus The Son of Man by Kahlil Gibran. It's a great book with fictionalized readings from the perspectives of people who witnessed Jesus and Good Friday. We incorporated these readings with Scripture readings which introduced each character. Then we sang one verse and the chorus responsively to "Were You There". It was a powerful service. I will try to post the entire service soon.

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Contributor: You Are What You Tax:

Take a break as you fill out your 1040 form, and play this game: suppose you could choose which government entities your tax dollars support - and in what proportion. Since it's a thought experiment, let's assume that local and state government functions are part of the list. What percentages will you assign to which departments, agencies and programs?
Some people will split their taxes between the local police and national defense and leave it at that. Some will assign it all to the Environmental Protection Agency. Taxpayers from red states will choose differently from taxpayers from blue states. But polling data tells us enough about the government services people value to permit reasonably confident predictions about the national results.
Police, fire, water and sewage, courts and prisons and national defense will get far more money than they would ever have the nerve to request. The allocations for national parks, environmental protection, air-traffic control and highways will probably be many times their current budgets. But my first point (match my prediction against your own choices) is that almost all the choices will be for tangible services. Most of them will be for services that fall under the classic understanding of a 'public good' - something that individuals cannot easily provide on their own and that is shared by all (police protection, clean air).

Fun thought experiment! How would you answer the question?

In a similar question, if you specified what your tithe or giving to the church paid for, what would you want to fund? In denominations with a "head tax" I would bet that much of the church bureaucracy would be left unfunded. Is that really such a bad thing?

And the local church may find that people are willing to volunteer more than they are willing to pay professionals to do ministry. I imagine that most people would pay for those things that they receive the most benefit from. So what are those things in the church that people typically think they receive the most benefit from?

I'm currently having trouble with my Amazon links to what I'm reading and listening to. I have been tempted in the past to switch to Typepad but I am cheap. Hopefully I can get this sorted out.

The New York Times > Movies > Holy Week Pilgrims Flock to 'Passion':

"The Passion of the Christ,' Mel Gibson's unflinching film of the Crucifixion, drew crowds last week during Holy Week, the most sacred period of the Christian calendar. Attendance grew steadily through the week and reached its highest on Good Friday, the commemoration of the Crucifixion

The film finally made it to our one screen movie theater this weekend. Several people from the Presbyterian church had a potluck supper before going to the movie together. We read Luke 22:14-23:65 before going. It was a very moving, yet difficult film to watch. But it was extremely powerful to see on Good Friday.

The New York Times > National > Drought Worsens Across West and Threat of Wildfires Grows:

The mountains of Colorado and northern New Mexico got more than a foot of snow this weekend, and meteorologists said the Albuquerque area could be looking at record rainfall this month. But this is only a start toward recovery.
'It'll help,' said Larry Palser, a farmer in Colorado's Washington County. 'It'll buy us some time.'
The United States Natural Resources Conservation Service says there could be water restrictions and widespread crop and pasture losses in central Nevada, southern Idaho, most of south-central Montana and eastern and southwestern Utah.
Most of southern Idaho and parts of southwest Montana are in 'exceptional drought,' the Department of Agriculture said. That's a step worse than 'extreme drought,' which the department said best described the situation in other parts of Montana and in Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Colorado.
With dry trees raising the risk of wildfires, it is not just farmers who will be hurting. Already this year, 10,000 acres have burned in Arizona, along with 8,500 acres in Colorado.
'In terms of fire, I think everybody is real nervous,' said Chris West, vice president of the American Forest Resource Council in Portland, Ore.

we definitely are in extreme drought here in eastern Colorado. Pastoring two small churches out here and many of the farmers are hurting. Many are looking for jobs in town or with the USDA. All of the dry land farmers will be making insurance claims on their wheat crops this year.

What I Need from PoMonasticism // Radical Congruency.com
Great thoughts!

TheOOZE - Articles: Viewing Article:

Have you ever heard of a church or ministry that teaches anyone a scripturally based criterion for decisions about real estate and where and how we should live our lives?

Challenging article! I was first exposed to Sine's ideas on housing in his excellent book Mustard Seed Vs. McWorld: Reinventing Life and Faith for the Future. Very challenging and countercultural thinking!

LivingRoom >> A space for Life: Stations of the Cross:

With Easter fast approaching I thought I'd post a link to a great collection of images by Australian Artist Geoff Todd. They are an interesting collection that go through the 14 Stations of the Cross. They make a great reflection time in preparation for the weekend.

I hope to be able to do this in the next day or two.

The New York Times > Business > Oman's Oil Yield Long in Decline, Shell Data Show:

Perhaps more ominously for the world's oil outlook, he added that the failure of Shell's horizontal drilling technology in Oman suggested that even advanced extraction techniques 'won't bring back the good old days.'

I have never been much of an environmentalist. This is largely due to my evangelical "left behind" theology upbringing. But this is changing. More and more I am understanding the gospel to include all of creation and not just a "free-get-out-of-jail-card."

My reflections started changing on this topic as I was preaching through the book of 1 Corinthians and especially chapter 15. One of the most interesting questions I wrestled with from that chapter was "Why is a physical resurrection of Jesus Christ so important and necessary? Why is a spiritual resurrection not enough?"

I believe that part of the answer to that question is that God is working to redeem (put right) all of creation. All of the physical creation. Clearly we have made quite a mess of it.

Essay: The Altered Human Is Already Here:

To look at it in another way, Americans take so many drugs that some researchers - Dr. Christian G. Daughton of the Environmental Protection Agency's National Exposure Research Laboratory in Las Vegas, for example - are worried about the effects on the environment. What does it mean if the sewers run rich with Zoloft? Or to be more precise, what might happen to fish eggs if the rivers soak up waste water with discarded and excreted pharmaceuticals and personal care products, like shampoo?
No one has the answer yet, but the idea that what runs through our collective bloodstream is a potential environmental hazard makes you look at your medicine cabinet in a different way.

No kidding!

In Math, Computers Don't Lie. Or Do They?
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'I don't like them, because you sort of don't feel you understand what's going on,' said Dr. John H. Conway, a math professor at Princeton. But other mathematicians see a major boon: just as the computers of today can beat the grand masters of chess, the computers of tomorrow may be able to discover proofs that have eluded the grandest of mathematicians.

Is this a non-native response to the emerging new technological culture?

Op-Ed Contributor: The Fog of War:

These accounts may seem perplexing given the momentous nature of the unfolding events. One might even wonder whether one of the parties has engaged in willful distortion. But these conflicts need not involve bad faith on the part of either person.
Indeed, conflicting recollections are neither unfamiliar (recall the testimonies of Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill in 1991) nor surprising. The way the brain stores and retrieves information, research shows, can sometimes lead people to hold different memories of the same event.
Memory errors can be classified into seven categories (sometimes called sins). Three are especially relevant to conflicting recollections: transience, misattribution and bias. Transience is the term for the well-known fact that memories tend to fade over time (unless we rehash and discuss them frequently). Experiments show that specific details of an experience are lost more quickly than general information about it.
In one such study, 12 people were asked to summarize their activities during a 'typical day' at work; they also were asked to recount exactly what they did the day before and a week before. The study confirmed what some researchers suspected: the day-old memory was a nearly verbatim record of what actually happened, but a week later memory was closer to a generic description of what usually happens. With the passage of time, memory shifts from a reproduction of the past to a reconstruction that is heavily influenced by general knowledge and beliefs.
Similar considerations almost certainly apply to what Mr. Clarke and Mr. Miller remember. Of course, 9/11 was not an ordinary day at the office. Shocking experiences like the terrorist attacks or the explosion of the space shuttle tend to be better remembered than mundane occurrences. But studies show that with the passage of time, people can forget and distort details of even these experiences.

Such errors are sometimes associated with the memory sin of misattribution, where we remember aspects of an experience correctly but attribute them to the wrong source. For instance, a college student recalled that she first learned of the Challenger explosion in 1986 from television, when the actual source was a group of friends. Misattribution errors can occur for traumatic experiences, as in the case of a rape victim who accused a psychologist of assault based on her vivid memory of his face. In reality, she had seen the psychologist on television just before she was raped.

Because parts of misattributed memories are accurate, people can maintain high confidence in such mistaken recollections. Both Mr. Clarke's and Mr. Miller's accounts are probably correct in some respects, but either one may have fallen victim to misattribution, leading to different claims about who said what to whom.

Bias, a third memory sin, occurs when current knowledge, beliefs or feelings distort the past. For example, studies have shown that we often inaccurately recall political attitudes we held in the past. Our recollection ends up reflecting our current attitudes instead. Research also reveals an egocentric bias, meaning we remember the past in ways that reflect positively our current self — a bias from which government officials are not likely to be immune.

Transience, misattribution and bias occur even when we do our best to recollect the past accurately. Without external corroboration, we cannot know for certain which aspects of Mr. Clarke's or Mr. Miller's account are off the mark — but we do know enough about memory's sins to implicate the likely culprits. It's something the commission, and the country, should keep in mind when Ms. Rice testifies as well.

Could these memory "sins" explain the different accounts of Christ's resurrection in the Gospels? This may make some evangelicals uncomfortable seeing how a view such as this may conflict with the idea of inerrancy and possibly infallibility.

False Promises on Gas:

The sad part about this squabbling is that it drives the debate toward short-term fixes of dubious value and away from the heart of the matter, which is getting the country to cut consumption while embarking on a serious program of alternative fuels. Tweaking the petroleum reserve, jawboning foreign leaders, even increasing refining capacity - none of these ideas have ever provided sustained protection against the volatility of world oil prices. A better approach would be to wean the nation from its profligate use of oil. In that context, a 50-cent gasoline tax is not a ridiculous idea; had such a tax been imposed a decade ago, consumption might well be less than it is now.

Tired of energy shaping so much of our political debate? Me too! Why didn't we make the difficult changes during the '70's and the energy crisis? I guess we don't want it to hurt too much. Eventually it's going to hurt a lot!

A Heretical View of File Sharing:

"But what if the industry is wrong, and file sharing is not hurting record sales?
It might seem counterintuitive, but that is the conclusion reached by two economists who released a draft last week of the first study that makes a rigorous economic comparison of directly observed activity on file-sharing networks and music buying."

This is a very interesting article. One conclusion reached by the researchers is the that many people who download music would have never bought the album in the first place. I know I fall into this category in many respects. Fortunately, we now have iTunes and MusicMatch that allows you to legally download individual songs without purchasing the entire album.

A Bridge Over Troubled People - Christianity Today Magazine:

'The church has got to rediscover its purpose in a postmodern culture, when absolute truth is no longer accepted by the mainstream,' Dorrell says. 'Unchurched people are looking for something that speaks genuineness to them.'
Church Under the Bridge, he says, serves as a call for renewal for the church in America to be about the Father's business.

This sounds like a very powerful ministry.

Our Sprawling, Supersize Utopia:

You don't have to travel very far in America to see radically different sorts of people, most of whom know very little about the communities and subcultures just down the highway.

Fascinating article on urban sprawl and the growing distance between people in American culture.

The Quest to Forget:

All of us have done things in our lives we'd rather not have done, things that flood us with remorse or pain or embarrassment whenever we call them to mind. If we could erase them from our memories, would we? Should we? Questions like these go to the nature of remembrance and have inspired films like ''Memento'' and, most recently, ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,'' in which two ex-lovers pay to erase their memories of each other. We are a long way from the day when scientists might be able to zap specific memories right out of our heads, like a neurological neutron bomb, but even the current research in this area ought to make us stop and think. Aren't our memories, both the good and the bad, the things that make us who we are? If we eliminate our troubling memories, or stop them from forming in the first place, are we disabling the mechanism through which people learn and grow and transform? Is a pain-free set of memories an impoverished one?

Pain avoidance taken to an entirely new level.

I always find that my first full week back from vacation or study leave is difficult. I think it's because my soul needs to catch up with my body!

My wife and I had a wonderful talk on our way home from Brownsville, TX. We discussed the difficulties in her family and how it seems that none of her "Christian" friends have ever been able to or wanted to walk with her through the difficulties in her family. Many Christians give cheap, formulaic advice. "Forgive and forget."

But aren't Christians suppose to come alongside fellow strugglers? Yes, we are to exhort each other and encourage one another but how can we effectively do that if we are not walking alongside one another?

When it comes right down to it, most Christians are too afraid or too selfish to really get their hands dirty with the business of truly loving someone else.

I hope and pray the emerging church challenges this!