One of my deepest hopes and enduring prayers is that we will all be more fully Living Spirituality throughout 2010 and the years to come.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Thursday, December 24, 2009
AMAZON HAS JUST DROPPED THE PRICE OF THE NEW BOOK BY $4.50 - SO SOME COMPETING ON PRICING IS GOOD, BUT BARNES AND NOBLE IS STILL THE BETTER DEAL. My Suggestion is not only to get this book for yourself, but also to pick up a copy for friends and family who you think might benefit. Merry Christmas to all.
For anyone who's interested:
Living Spiritual Rhythms For Today.
You can find this deal here: Living Spiritual Rhythms For Today
Monday, December 21, 2009
Reflection for the Week
At any time of year, but especially now, don't center your whole life on shopping, but focus on the birth of Christ and its significance for all of life.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you believe that God hides?
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
The biblical text is full of a plurality of worlds. My direction here is to suggest that there are pertinent signs and resolute traces of God making himself known in a polyphonic manner. Think of the Garden in Genesis; the burning bush in Exodus; the throne theophaines in Isaiah and Ezekiel; and the resurrection of Jesus for a start. These types of manifestations, which let us know that God is there are expressed into our world, yet they go beyond it by far. Therefore, to understand more about God, it is essential to imaginatively enter these various worlds and as we read about them, to begin act within them in serving others.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Reflection for the Week
We may find it rather easy to get caught up in webs of deception. In order to counter this tendency we need to make a concerted effort, on the basis of the spiritual power at work in our lives, to bring about a Christ centered perspective and a trajectory away from our deceptive thoughts and actions, and towards a new life. Having been given the offer of resurrection, we sometimes struggle to embrace it, yet we are free to live in a community where there is no condemnation.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Where have all the rebels gone? Perhaps, we don’t need them anymore? Does it seem to you that Christians should be rebels?
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT!!
LIVING SPIRITUAL RHYTHMS FOR TODAY
Saturated with spiritual power and loving wisdom, Living Spiritual Rhythms For Today is relevant, inspiring, and perceptive. Gregory J. Laughery has put together a challenging blend of anecdotes, stories, poems, and prayers that call us to serious reflection and redemptive action. This book is a spiritual odyssey; a journey of daily readings invoking a constellation of thoughts and emotions including joy and sadness, trust and suspicion, courage and fear, love and justice. Laughery develops, with critical care, piercing grace, and keen insight, a picture of life lived in community with God and others. Reading and being read by this text will open up a diversity of opportunities for a dynamic encounter with spiritual riches that point us in the direction of a transformation of who we are and what we do.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Reflection for the Week
When it is understood that Jesus Christ is the gateway to living spirituality, there are new and momentous opportunities that open up for us. Here are a few notable examples. We are given community with the Infinite-personal God by tasting living water and experiencing a new birth of the Spirit through faith in the Crucified and Risen One. When we accept the invitation to walk through the gateway, our world explodes because we confess that it is no longer centered on ourselves. And it is then that we start to find our place in living spirituality and to discover the true meaning of life in all its richness and mystery.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
“This coffee is poison” can have multiple meanings: quick, get a doctor; you forgot to put sugar in my coffee; this is lousy coffee. How might we draw a distinction in interpretation between the inescapable relativity of meaning, and the escapable relativism in meaning?
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
False memories make a difference for God, the self, and the other. To remember truly is to remember God and to remember God is to make an effort to remember what is true. Remembering well is remembering justly for the sake of the other. And God would have us do this, both as victim and victimizer.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Reflection for the Week
Science and Scripture are both valid informers concerning God, ourselves, and the world. Veracity and credibility, for the Christian faith, are hinged on these informers being in dialogue and a willingness to see what comes of it.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
If the reader of a text, let us say the biblical text, is a participator in and a producer of meaning, does this signify that we are left with an unlimited series of readings that are all valid?
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
Literary genres in the biblical text are not merely formal structures or conventions, but function as theological directives concerning the complexity of the character of God. Theodiversity, in the biblical theodrama, opens horizons and dimensions of God that no single genre can contain. Scripture, as revealed through the communicative interaction of God in narrative, wisdom, poetry, hymn, prophecy, and apocalyptic attempts to portray in words that which is ultimately beyond capturing: God is the creator, redeemer, and mystery of the world.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Friday, November 20, 2009
Trusting and Suspicious Selves
I wonder if true selves have anything to do with true stories in both their telling and reading. Someone like Freud would have said there is no way of discerning between truth and fiction. For him, narrative is a move away from the real world - an assault on truth. Another way of saying this is that for Freud, all narrators are unreliable. The problematic, or at least so it seems to me, is one of trust and suspicion. At some point, we have to decide and keep deciding, who we trust and who we are suspicious of.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you think our natural desires for acceptance, validation, and significance are obstacles for living spirituality and being true selves?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
The longing for validation and the fear of invalidation often creates a powerful dynamic that risks surpassing human norms. That is, these two emotions can be considered a part of being human and therefore appropriate, yet when they operate in such a way that they dominate our lives, then we have been deceived into being selfish and short circuiting our spirituality. Duped into false ways of relating to get what we want from the other does them violence and is ultimately unloving towards self and other. Oppressive and dominating power mechanisms such as these need to be confronted by a power that is greater than they, notably Christ and the agency of the Holy Spirit, which will lead to transformation and fresh ways of relating that re-connect to our spirituality.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Reflection for the Week
May God be with us as we seek to live by faith in the crucified and risen One.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
How do you understand Jesus’ perplexing saying in Mark 11:24?
“I tell you therefore whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
There are times when we have a sense of being lost in the desert, or groping in the wilderness. While we long for direction and release, God seems far away and disinterested. In spite of these circumstances we have to rely on God and his faithful promise to be with us, because whether we perceive his presence or not, he is there. Our faith in God cannot be rooted in perceptions, although they play a role, but rather it is to be deeply and holistically situated in God.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Reflections for the Week
Selfishly deceptive? Sometimes we assume that if we do what we want to do that God must be against it. God only approves of us doing things we don’t want to do. It goes like this: doing what we want to do is selfish. But this may be a deception. Why? God may not be at all opposed to what we want to do. We can all too easily deceive ourselves about being selfish, either when we are or when we are not.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What are your thoughts about the viability of the “virtual church?”
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
Finding our way along in this world is complex. True, God is faithful, as promised, to direct the lives of his children, but he leaves some important matters up to us. And that’s as it should be. Seems God wants us to achieve, to make good choices, and to grow in wisdom.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Reflection for the Week
Someone once said to me that because Christians are parts of a body this means that God has a specific plan for each one. I think the point is rather that Christians need each other and when some attempt to pridefully isolate themselves from their fellow believers they make a mess of things. Sectarian overtures in the Christian community, as in the Corinth of the Apostle Paul’s day, will inevitably produce a lack of love. Being part of a body is a symbol of unity and mutual interdependence, and the recognition of this reality should produce a more active love towards each other.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
If we receive grace from God, why is this gift so infrequently passed on to others?
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
Reality is subjectively objective. This configuration corresponds to the way God made the world and humanity. That is, God, the other, and the world are objectively there, but our access to them is subjective. Subjectivity does not cancel out objectivity, or vice versa.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Reflection for the Week
Reading the biblical text wisely opens us up to new possibilities for living in community with God, the other, and the world. Being read by it challenges our hearts and minds, shapes our characters and identities, and changes our spiritualities and lives. Take and read. Read and be taken.
Friday, October 23, 2009
What in the World is Real?
Increasingly, we find ourselves in cultures that prioritize the visual over everything else; where images can, for better or worse, tend to dominate the landscape of life. Engaging the challenges of a proliferation of new ways of seeing and being may suggest that we have to reassess our understanding of God, text, self, other, imagination, and the world. That which has been assumed to be real, from an Enlightenment modernist or church perspective, calls for a careful re-exploration. Whether it be reason or faith enthroned, the unreal will lead us astray in attempting to displace Christ from his rightful place. If he is the image (eikon) of the invisible God, then what is real changes everything.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you think symbols, say of God, truth, sin, and love, serve any purpose?
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What is your destiny and does it have any impact on your present life?
Thursday, October 8, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What is satisfaction in life?
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
How can we deal with the legitimate fear of being duped or deceived, without falling into protecting ourselves through deception?
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Today, in many disciplines of thought, it is other contexts rather than one’s own that count. Do you think it’s possible or advantageous to aim to ignore one’s own context in the light of the other’s context?
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
In what ways does the “how much more” of God’s grace manifest itself in your story?
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
How is it possible to move through a rightly critical attitude about an impoverished Christian faith in the church or our own lives, towards renewal and a contribution to making things better?
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
We may have heard someone say "I hope God is there?" There seems to be a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about hope nowadays. Any thoughts on how to better clarify this important biblical perspective?
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you have any suggestions about how Christians in the West can avoid the prevailing powers of consumerism?
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What would you say is the most misunderstood aspect of the Christian faith?
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
If a Christ centered person works harder from a Christ centered perspective in what they do, and not from the deceptive power of shame, guilt, and condemnation, would this be a problem for living the Christian life?
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Any thoughts on why so much of the Bible is either narrative or poetry?
Thursday, July 23, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
ZZ will be closed for vacation until the 6th of August. I’m looking forward to renewing the conversation and dialogue then. For now – Bonjour.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you see anything wrong with Peter’s answer to Jesus’ question in Mk 8: But who do you say that I am?
8:22
And they came to Beth-sa'ida. And some people brought to him a blind man, and begged him to touch him.
8:23
And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, "Do you see anything?"
8:24
And he looked up and said, "I see men; but they look like trees, walking."
8:25
Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked intently and was restored, and saw everything clearly.
8:26
And he sent him away to his home, saying, "Do not even enter the village."
8:27
And Jesus went on with his disciples, to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, "Who do men say that I am?"
8:28
And they told him, "John the Baptist; and others say, Elijah; and others one of the prophets."
8:29
And he asked them, "But who do you say that I am?" Peter answered him, "You are the Christ."
8:30
And he charged them to tell no one about him.
8:31
And he began to teach them that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.
8:32
And he said this plainly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.
8:33
But turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, "Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your focus not on divine things, but human things."
8:34
And he called to him the multitude with his disciples, and said to them, "If any would come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
8:35
For those who want to save their life will lose it; and those who lose life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.
8:36
For what does it profit them to gain the whole world and lose their life?
8:37
For what can anyone give in return for their life?
8:38
For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them will the Son of man also be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels."
Thursday, July 9, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you think that loving an uninformed or arrogant Christian legalist-fundamentalist who needs to change their outlook, way of relating and understanding might contribute to a change taking place?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What should we do when a change in attitude, understanding, and mentality is necessary, but some Christians are unaware of this because of weakness or simplicity?
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Does knowledge of God require imagination?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Hugging forbidden! Recently, hugging was banned at several schools in various places around the world. What are your thoughts? Anything important about this ban or the act of a frequent hug?
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Relationships today seem to emerge with frequency and easily come and go, but love is rare and tough in that its demands go beyond the momentary and casual. It appears that love has it all going against it; commitment, trust, fidelity, longevity, sacrifice, and risk to name a few of its infelicities. Do you think that many people in our culture have given up on love?
Thursday, June 4, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What would you suggest to someone who had misinterpreted the seriousness of a romantic relationship and when it ceased therefore felt betrayed and lied to by the other person, and now the other person is married, but this someone can’t reconcile with or be in the presence of this other person? Both are Christians.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Here in Switzerland we still recognize something of the relevance of Ascension and Pentecost. That is to say, at least they’re days off for most. Do you think religious markers such as these are important for a culture?
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What’s your perspective of a Christian community life?
Thursday, May 14, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you think feeling safe and loved is more important than biblical stories?
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
How does false shaming in the church affect you or others? Would you think that this makes it more difficult to accept that we are sinners?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Some people say the United States is God’s nation. What’s your view?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you think all the tears and screams, combined with the misery of the world, have been addressed by God?
Thursday, April 16, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I’M AWAY FOR A FEW DAYS SO CANNOT JOIN IN, BUT I WILL RESPOND TO ANY COMMENTS EARLY NEXT WEEK.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What are your thoughts about the surging degree of homelessness in so many parts of the world, including North America?
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What would you say to a Christian woman and man, committed to each other and to God, who asked for your advice about having had sexual relations with each other prior to any official wedding ceremony, which had not yet been planned and might not formally take place ?
Thursday, April 2, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
I read this frequently in various books: “we should have complete dependence on God.” Do you think it’s possible or desirable to be completely dependent on God?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Get in the Groove
I’d like to express my thanks to Robert Gelinas and his publisher for sending me his new book: Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith. It was a joy just to see Robert’s book, with its well designed cover, and to handle it, with its unusual and helpful dimensions conceived for the reader. This book looks like a gem, and in addition to these important aesthetic attributes, it reads like one too. Reading Finding the Groove is like going to a jazz concert with all its originality and vision and then seeing how these grooves apply to living a finely tuned Christian life that matters to and for God, each other, and the world. Brimming with striking harmonies and exquisite orchestrations, Robert’s well written words affirm a creative tension in Scripture, while also highlighting the necessity of practicing a lively faithful improvisation on the score. This is theo-jazz at its finest. Readers are invited to find their voices and develop their ears in order to better follow the rhythms, beats, and off beats, which impact and address every area of life, of Jesus the Master jazz theologian. Robert carefully composes these notes with flair, tenacity, and passion as one well versed in jazz and its profound implications for theology. Get this book. Read it. You’ll love it. Excellent and highly recommended!
Thursday, March 26, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
When guilt and condemnation surge and seek to convince you that you have to redouble your efforts to be a better Christian, how do you respond?
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you believe that evangelicalism (alleged to be Bible believing Christianity) is collapsing?
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Are we at the end of history? If so, what do you believe will happen?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Does being loved carry with it legitimate expectations as to how this love must be given and expressed?
Thursday, February 26, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Would you say that love is not love if it expects something in return?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
How do you deal with people who have no respect for others?
Thursday, February 12, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
“I was told I was loved,” someone recently conveyed to me. “My parents said they loved me and that’s why they demanded my full attention. And I believed it was true.”
Do you think this is love?
Thursday, February 5, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you have any advice or suggestions as to how to address a feeling of continuous sadness in a person’s life?
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Ever been depressed? Why do you think depression is so widespread today?
Thursday, January 22, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
In a day when that which is said to be Christian often produces unfaith, what kind(s) of Christian witness might lead people towards faith in God and the saving work of Christ?
Thursday, January 15, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What are your thoughts on “discipline”? Positive? Negative?
Thursday, January 8, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you think it is easier to judge than to love?
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue.
I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Is it really, Happy New Year, for you? What are you up or down about for 2009?
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