Upgraded

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I’ve upgraded the Blog to what I hope is the final version of Bloo v. 1.34. Will do a bit of testing on this blog and a few others and then release it into the wild.

This version has been a long, strange trip. It includes an image uploader, which necessitated an Ajax facility (called Bloojax, also being released in 1.34) and – unfortunately (due to an aversion deep in my DNA) lots of Javascript. Javascript requires lots of cross-browser testing, because it’s not standard across browsers.

I’ll quit bellyaching. But this version took me forever to get done (and things can still go wrong – I still need to do final testing in Chrome, IE, safari . . .)

Pie Jesu

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I think this song is amazingly beautiful. We heard it at our son’s Junior High choir concert the other day. The video below is of Sissel singing it.

Pie Jesu – Andrew Lloyd Webber

Pie Jesu, Pie Jesu

Pie Jesu, Pie Jesu

Qui tollis peccata mundi

Dona eis requiem

Dona eis requiem

Lord, have mercy

Lord, have mercy

You who take away the sins of the world

Grant them rest

Grant them rest

Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei

Agnus Dei, Agnus Dei

Qui tollis peccata mundi

Dona eis requiem

Dona eis requiem

Sempiternam, sempiternam requiem

Lamb of God, Lamb of God

Lamb of God, Lamb of God

You who take away the sins of the world

Grant them rest

Grant them rest

rest everlasting, everlasting

Private life

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I had an irony moment this morning. As you may know, Elizabeth Edwards died of cancer yesterday. This morning a popular morning show aired a segment called “Elizabeth’s Private Life”, featuring a panel of her dearest friends.

A few thoughts:

1. It’s not a “private” life if it’s broadcast to millions of people. that segment this morning was an oxymoron.

2. No one has any privacy anymore. The phone I had as of a few days ago wanted to broadcast my exact GPS position to the world at all times. The journals and diaries that teenagers used to keep under lock and key (horrified at the thought that anyone would read them) are now broadcast to the entire world, 24×7. A large number of people today willingly broadcast their location, thoughts, activities, and images to the world, all day long.

3. Even if you’re trying to have a private life, you are going to find your own image tagged and broadcast to the world on various social media sites, because cameras are everywhere and everyone’s always capturing digital images of everything, Much of the time you won’t even realize that you were having your picture taken.

“Private life” doesn’t happen anymore, unless one is extremely intentional about it.

Murder in the Wings

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We saw the Cy Fair players yesterday in Murder in the Wings. It’s a really, really funny play.

Here’s Beth, I mean “Bobby June”, the pistol-packing, faux-Southern Belle undercover agent. She did great.

(for what it’s worth, I uploaded this photo here with the new Image Uploader SnapOn released in bloo version 1.34).

One additional purpose for Luke and Acts

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I read a very interesting theory about the books of Luke and Acts in Guzik’s commentary today.

By his title (most excellent), we gather that Theophilus was probably a Roman government official. It is entirely likely that the books of Luke and Acts make up Paul’s defense brief for his trial before Caesar, since Acts leaves Paul waiting for that trial.

Not sure if I buy that, but I think, if true, that’s very cool.

Tonight

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Gosh, College and Young Singles homegroup was awesome tonight. For me anyway. I get more out of preparing for the lesson than I’m sure anyone gets out of participating in it. What a privilege. And then we played “Mau” until after midnight.

Fabulous.

Car-lagged

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Where we’ve been: Soccer Tournament, Blake’s team, at the Wide World of Sports at Disney, We drove, leaving last Wednesday with Blake and Bethany. The college kids did not come with, but we had thanksgiving with them Tuesday night, and another at Landry’s in Orlando with the team on Thursday night.

What Happened: Wind happened. Wind and nerves, at least in the first game, which we lost but could have/should have won. It was a bummer but we dominated the rest of pool play, under much better playing conditions, and ended up tied with the first place team in our pool. Unfortunately, they are also the team that beat us so they won the tiebreaker and went to the medal round (they lost in the finals).

Since Then: We left Orlando yesterday, and were much delayed by three (count ’em!) separate traffic tie ups (caused by wrecks) along the way. We decided to drive straight through on the way home – our trip to Orlando had an overnight stop in it, but we were anxious to get home. We arrived around 6:15am this morning. The trip took about seventeen hours.

Me: Tired but happy.

The Plan

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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. – 2 Corinthians 5:17-21

The verses following the declaration of new creation in 2 Corinthians 5:17 are full of the word “reconciliation”: us being reconciled to God and being given the ministry of reconciliation, God reconciling the world to himself and entrusting us with the message of reconciliation. Then comes this breathtaking sentence;

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.

And, as you’re reading it, you’ve barely digested that before you see this:

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

It’s good to revisit God’s plan now and then. At first blush, it sounds a bit crazy. He desires to reconcile the world to himself, and to do that, he plans on using ambassadors to deliver his message of reconciliation. Based on the counsel of his own wisdom, with the goal of furthering his own glory, he decides to choose the most incompetent souls he can find to become his ambassadors, and, to make it even more astounding, he selects these souls from among his bitter enemies.

At the risk of sounding irreverent, this quote from Garth Algar comes to mind:

“First I’ll access the secret military spy satelite that is in geosynchronous orbit over the midwest. Then I’ll ID the limo by the vanity plate ‘MR. BIGGG’ and get his approximate position. Then I’ll reposition the transmission dish on the remote truck to 17.32 degrees east, hit WESTAR 4 over the Atlantic, bounce the signal back into the aerosphere up to COMSAT 6, beam it back to SATCOM 2 transmitter number 137 and down on the dish on the back of Mr. Big’s limo… It’s almost too easy.”

But he’s the Lord, and his ways are so much higher above my ways. His plan is working, and it is increasing his glory, and he has taken from among his enemies incompetent, misfit souls and has turned us into ambassadors. And, of course, it wasn’t easy. It took the blood of God’s beloved Son. But God believed it to be worth it!

The Plan. It’s not always pretty, but the end result will be beautiful.

As a corollary to all this, many of us need correction in our thinking. We think salvation is all about us. It’s not. Salvation is all about him reconciling, not just us, but the world to himself. Whether we like it or not – and hopefully we can see what a great honor this is! – we are ambassadors.

It is unfair for us to expect those who are not in Christ to live as if they were a new creation. However, it is not unfair to expect a changed life from people who say they are Christians! “I know no language, I believe there is none, that can express a greater or more thorough and more radical renewal, than that which is expressed in the term, ‘a new creature.’” (Spurgeon)

– David Guzik, commenting on 2 Corinthians 5:17

A Presidential Proclamation

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Because I can never resist quoting the great one, here is his Thanksgiving proclamation from 1863:

A Proclamation.

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consiousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.

By the President: Abraham Lincoln

William H. Seward, Secretary of State

[H/T The Corner]