Hello, friends!

I am posting a this & that post today because my Sabbath is getting crowded with good things. I am learning to enjoy God as I walk through crowded days as much as when I sit through solitary ones – He is faithful either way.

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I read this article, “Not Like Me,” over at The Curator magazine because I resonated with the opening anecdote of a new father with a notoriously bad driving record driving his first child home in the family car. I think I’ll have a similar moment someday. But, the article mostly focused on this father’s hope for his children – a hope that they would have the freedom to be teachers and artists and writers instead of a computer programmer. I’m not sure how I feel about this idea of progress producing generations more free to pursue less technical careers. He quotes John Adams in a letter he wrote in a letter to Abigail,

I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine. (John Adams to Abigail Adams, [post 12 May 1780])

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Did you watch the Olympic Opening Ceremony? It was a production, to be sure. Danny Boyle‘s dramatic presentation drew 40.7 million people to tune in to NBC on Friday night. I was one of those 40.7 million and I think there were beautiful things and strange things and things I wouldn’t want my children to see (if I had children). This article from the Huffington Post, “NBC Sets Opening Ceremony Record with London 2012 Olympics.” I’m a sucker for good competition and the underdog stories that are so easy to dig up when there’s a world stage, so I’ll be tuning in this week in what will add up to more TV than I’ll watch all year.

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I am so grateful for this article from the Gospel Coalition, “Do You See the Suffering? Our Mirror Eyes and U.S. Latinos” because it says what people aren’t talking about in the political arena: it talks about what we see when we look at people. Take away policies and papers and really look at our Latino population, without mirror eyes. What do you see?

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I have been reading sermons from C.H. Spurgeon – a well-known preacher from England who became famous for his common (some said vulgar) style. I love what he says about studying God,

“There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subject we can compass and grapple with; in them we feel a kind of self-content, and go our way with the thought, “Behold, I am wise.” But when we come to this master-science, finding that our plumb-line cannot sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height, we turn away with the thought, that vain man would be wise, but he is like a wild ass’s colt; and with the solemn exclamation, “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God.”  (C.H. Spurgeon in his sermon, “The Immutability of God”)

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let LOVE fly like cRaZy