Maybe you don’t need more encouragement to be neurotic about the English language… but here it is anyway: (watch)
Misc
And I Thought I Was Original…
25 Things
1. I started dating Anne Marie when I was just short of my 15th birthday
2. I married Anne Marie when I was just short of my 20th birthday
3. In between those two dates, I didn’t always treat Anne Marie as well as could have. I hope I do a lot better now.
4. I get annoyed with people’s idiosyncrasies, and my own as well
5. I sometimes exclaim: “Man, I am SUCH a freak!”
6. I don’t think Johnny Cash really made that great a contribution
7. I demand too much of my little girls sometimes… but much was demanded of me when I was little and I’m now thankful for it
8. I haven’t written many new songs in the last few years and I sometimes worry that the gift is gone. If it is gone, it found it’s way to Shane. Shane writes good songs.
9. I can sleep anywhere… and it doesn’t have to be quiet either
10. I have wasted many years at my current job. I plan to fix that problem in the next couple of months
11. I once took too many free balloons from the grocery store. My mom made me take them back. I was frightened and humiliated and that day I learned a valuable lesson
12. Some things that I think are funny are actually mean (peace out Shane)
13. I sometimes shamelessly promote my blog
14. I cry almost every time I hear Counting Crows “Miami”
15. I cry when I watch that cheesy “You… complete me” scene in Jerry Maguire
16. I cried for about 10 minutes – actually I wept – after watching Charlize Theron in “Monster” http://www.imdb.com/title/
17. I can’t find or imagine finding another family as knit together or unique as the Krahns.
18. I have three daughters and no desire to have a son
19. I don’t fear aging, in fact I’m looking fwd to it
20. A few years ago, I almost converted to Roman Catholicism. I still consider Thomas Merton a mentor.
21. I like books
22. Sleep is a necessary evil
23. Jack Layton makes me nauseous
24. I have a lot of hope for Barack Obama, although I wish he’d change his views on abortion
25. If anything goes wrong in the USA, Jack Bauer can fix it with threats of violence… and violence.
Fasting doesn’t always involve food…
I’m fasting from the internet this week so you won’t be able to contact me by email, Facebook, or blog comments.
If you desperately need me, you can email my wife at annemarie.krahn@gmail.com
Otherwise, I will return to cyberspace on Monday, July 14th.
In the meantime (since YOU are not fasting from the internet)…
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(one of mine called “She Remembers”)
Enjoy the week.
Richard Dawkins: Heaven. Leona Helmsley: Hell. Jerry Falwell: Somewhere Between
People are… amusing? Is that the right word for this? I received these three comments on my Dawkins page. I reprint them here for your enjoyment. Let me know what you think…
Hello Michael,
Now the reason I came to your site is that an important message has been sent down, just like a News Update. I have a message to tell you about Revelation. The message is from God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost. Sent in the Spring of 2006. It is about the meaning of <b>First is Last</b> and Last is First. The message is this:
<b>In the morning I go to Heaven. In the afternoon I live my life. In the evening I die, death. </b> What does this mean? In other words this means Birth is Last and Last is Birth. To understand this don’t think from point A to point B. Think of this as a continous circle of life. Birth, Life, Death, Birth. God also said that Judgment will be before Birth in Heaven. As birth on Earth is painful so will birth in Heaven. Yes, God has recently made contact and he sent a messenger.
This will help you understand this message better, Did you know that Mike Douglas died on his birthday? Melanie Steffen*****
Now Richard Dawkins made some good points in his book. As a scienctist he should have taken one more avenue. He could have concluded that maybe parts of the bible are the word of man and not the word of God. He would have been closer to the truth.
Now God also told me that <b>Richard Dawkins</b> goes to heaven. He says that he is an embarrassment, but God is fond of him. He thinks of him as a pet. What this means to me is that God is also saying you don’t have to believe in God or Jesus to get into heaven. Athiests can go to Heaven.
God also had something to say about <b>Jerry Falwell</b>, well known TV evangelist. God said that Jerry does not go to Heaven. He doesn’t go to Hell either. Jerry falls into a third catagory of people he doesn’t want in Heaven, and he doesn’t want to punish him either. Jerry just disappears, vanishes. What this means to me is that just believing in Jesus does not get you into Heaven. It takes more than that.
*****
One more example is Leona Helmsley. God sends her to Hell. Now Leona was a mean witch for a good part of her life, right up to the day she died. God gave her everything, good looks, money, opportunities, and even more money. Things most of us will never have. She saw herself a Queen in her Hotel and would fire people for very small things. Before she fired people she would berate them. There are hundreds of stories. When Leona realized that she was dying she asked God to forgive her. So she knew about God. God said it was the 11th hour, it was to late to say your sorry. God sent Leona to Hell. Leona right now is alone and in the dark. She thought she was better than everyone else, so she is all by herself.
What this means to me, is that waiting until the last minute to say your sorry, and asking God to forgive you does not work.
This also means that God will forgive you, God is forgiving. You need to change your ways before it is to late though.
It says in the Bible that God is forgiving, so parts of the bible are correct.
Prophets and Pharisees
I started reading the bible from page one in January and I’m coming up on halfway now so I have some fresh thoughts about prophets.
Most seem hesitant to carry out what God tells them to do… probably because at various times they were sawed in half or killed some other way. Half the time they were making the king extremely angry.
This is very different from today’s “prophets” who strut and command as if they ARE kings.. There is a humility in the OT prophets that you don’t see today… they understood how great God is and how depraved their own hearts were.
I think the difference between a prophet and a pharisee is that one hears from the living God and reluctantly – or at least with a proper fear – delivers God’s word to its target. The other, the Pharisee, always lives according to where God was in ages past. He does not want God to speak to him personally, that would be too much of a challenge. He wants everything in black and white so he can have a checklist and by that checklist determine how holy he is.
I certainly bend towards that. I am an organizational freak! I love to know exactly what I’m supposed to and when I accomplish it I want everyone to know that I did. That’s why the last 8 months have been the most challenging for me while also being very hard, not knowing exactly what God has in store for me. But this has grown my faith because I’ve given up a lot of control and everything has worked out for good… just like the Good Book says.
Seen and Heard (Jan 23, 2008)
CT reviews McLaren’s latest book “Everything Must Change”
From the Tim Challies archives, a post on “Excessive Reading”
Have you seen “No Country for Old Men”? What did you think?
Andy Stanley is into a series on the ten commandments. Here is
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.
That without his will, they can neither move or be moved
We can be patient when things go against us
thankful when things go well
and for the future we can have
good confidence in our faithful God and Father
that nothing will separate us from his love.
All creatures are so completely in his hand
that without his will
they can neither move or be moved
- Heidelberg Catechism, Q & A 28
This expression of God’s sovereignty – “All creatures are so completely in his hand that without his will they can neither move or be moved” – is comforting and constraining at the same time.
No man can move us unless God wills him to. As Jesus said to Pilate, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.” I love that scene in The Passion of the Christ. Jesus, bloody and beaten to within a breath of his life, utters these defiant words to Pilate and Pilate knows the truth of it.
We cannot move unless God wills us to. How difficult this submission is, to not move outside of God’s will. We say it is difficult to discern at times but more often I think we simply choose the way that seems best to us without really asking God. If we move outside his will, we move away, even if we do what he would have asked of us. If we do it with selfish motives, it negates the benefit of the act.
So why do we resist this submission? Because we do not believe that he has our ultimate good in mind. We still believe, foolishly, that we can find our own way and only seek assistance when the going is hard. We are still every bit as foolish as our first parents were in the garden.
What is the chief end of man?
Calvin’s Heidelberg Catechism:
What is the chief end of man?
To know God and enjoy him forever.
How much more effective could my witness be if I could first believe and then start with this in my attempts to show others Christ? I’ll keep referring to the subculture by which I was surrounded, the Canadian Mexican Mennonite culture. I was surrounded by it and affected by it but I wouldn’t consider myself raised IN it.
To know God and enjoy Him forever is not something that was often (if ever) communicated to me. To obey him forever, to not have fun forever, to categorize nearly everything as “of the world” and then to stay away from everything that is “of the world” – those were the chief ends of man that I was aware of.
I’ll make a completely subjective judgment here: As I sit writing this in a coffee shop in southwestern Ontario, a young family of Mennonite heritage similar to mine is sitting at the table beside me. Although they are dressed in clothing no different than anyone else in this coffee shop, I somehow pegged them even before I heard them speak the common language of Mennonites in this area – Low German or Plattdeutsch.
There is an enduring sadness in the mother’s face, a hesitance to smile, a lack of joy that I have seen in countless others. I have seen her smile a couple of times but she seems to fight it.
There is the hint in the accent of their English that they learned it second after Low German, but their two young sons are clearly young Canadians. The father has some semblance of joy but is reserved in his expression of it.
None of this is to question their faith or to say that they don’t have true joy, it is simply an observation of a unique countenance common to many, and it is one that seems reluctant to express joy.
Live Blogging the (Canadian) Debate
I hadn’t planned on doing this… in fact, I’ve never live-blogged anything before. And also, I kind of forgot the debate was going to be on so I didn’t prepare at all, but I found myself at the computer, watching TV and figured “Why not?”.
So I live micro-blogged via Twitter. Here’s the transcript, including a few comments I received along the way:
Dion on the attack…. ooooooooo, it’s like being hit by a little girl.via Twitter - 9:07pm
I like Layton… too bad he wants a socialist dictatorship.viaTwitter - 9:09pm
Go Harper… he’s mentoring them.via Twitter - 9:13pm
Oh here we go… May is talking with about “rich people” – defined as “people with investments”. Woohoo – I guess I’m rich, I have an RRSP.via Twitter - 9:14pm
Layton attacks Dion. Not nice Jack… shouldn’t pick on little girls.via Twitter - 9:20pm
Duceppe just asked about “reimborasabull” for “da turd time” – must be important.via Twitter - 9:23pm
Those jobs ARE going elsewhere Jack… but we’ve gained 100,000 new jobs… where’s the problem?via Twitter - 9:29pm
Dion: “Where… am I?”.via Twitter - 9:30pm
Duceppe, you’re not a party.. you’re a killjoy.via Twitter -9:34pm -
Harper sounds sane… but that haircut has to go.via Twitter -9:35pm -
May – Sweden, Germany, the Green Party, sounds like she lives on the wrong continent.via Twitter - 9:39pm
Quick poll for those listening: Who will the new Liberal leader be after the election? Rae or Iggy?via Twitter - 9:42pm
May spoke and didn’t mention Sweden or Germany… progress.via Twitter - 9:44pm
Switch Dion and May… they’re heading the wrong parties.viaTwitter - 9:46pm
Layton is playing “Weekend at Bernie’s” with the corpse of Tommy Douglas. Psssst, Jack, we know…via Twitter - 9:52pm
Stephane “Afterthought” Dion – they wait for him to finish, and then move on.via Twitter - 9:55pm
May agrees with Harper about Jack using the private clinic.viaTwitter - 9:56pm
Deceppe def’n: The number of people in a country is that country’s “bobalashun”.via Twitter - 9:58pm
May, the “Creative Class”… mmmmmmm, elitism anyone?viaTwitter - 10:00pm
Layton: “The arts is important to I.”.via Twitter - 10:03pm
Dion: “Its not the job of politicians to decide who will be helped by the government.” What? Really?via Twitter - 10:05pm
May: “mean-spirited cuts to artists.” When it involves artists, there are no other kind.via Twitter - 10:07pm
How can you accuse someone of making decisions based on their ideology? Is there any other way?via Twitter - 10:09pm
I may have to add a Green lawn sign beside my Conservative one. Is that allowed?via Twitter - 10:13pm
Dion – Gotta get tough on the causes of crime: poverty, addiction, and mental illness.via Twitter - 10:14pm
Another cause of violence: competent leaders waiting in the wings watching current leader flush party down toilet.via Twitter -10:15pm -
May: literacy = no crime. Tell that to the white-collar criminals.via Twitter - 10:17pm
Layton is too patronizing sometimes… a little cheezy.via Twitter -10:19pm -
Layton: $400 per child per year will help families “get the right start in life.” That’s some frugal people.via Twitter - 10:19pm
Harper is explaining the following to Dion: “Politics for Dummies”.via Twitter - 10:20pm -
Duceppe shouldn’t be allowed to speak on any issues that don’t involve Quebec.via Twitter - 10:29pm
I repeat: Steve Pakin is very good.via Twitter - 10:36pm
Layton wants Harper to guarantee that no one will lose their house or job. Can YOU promise that, Jack?via Twitter - 10:39pm
May on politics: spoken like someone who’s never been in power. Great aspirations but significantly more complicated than that.via Twitter - 10:50pm
I like May… it was the right decision to have her on… performing much better than Dion, Layton, and that guy who wants to leave the country …via Twitter - 10:54pm
Dion is so easily pushed around.. they’re toying with him.viaTwitter - 10:57pm
Good debate… I make a lot of fun of Dion but a person of his many weaknesses should not be the leader of a national party.via Twitter- 10:59pm -
CBC television just spent time analyzing Twitter updates during the debate. Interesting.via Twitter - 11:44pm
Follow me on Twitter.
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