It's seems strange to think that 15 years ago the Internet didn't really have any impact on any one's life, much less have any sense of community built into. But that is where we stand today, with sites like myspace, facebook and others creating the sense of a genuine online community of friends that can communicate with each other in ways that you would have never believed even 10 years ago.
Which gets me thinking about prayer. In some sense, the idea is as abstract to some as the Internet was 15-20 years ago. Think about it. If someone would have come up to you in 1990 and said "In the next 10-20 years there is going to be this thing called the Internet where people can type conversations to one another and share photos, music and even videos" you would have thought they were crazy. Especially if they told you it was going to be wireless (which is how I am connected to this "crazy" Internet thing right now). You could have presented a pretty good case to make them seem like a complete loony. Now we know this as a reality in our lives though and it seems as though the only crazy ones are the ones who aren't plugged into, or wireless connected to, the Internet. Everyone uses it, but do you really understand how it works? I don't. I'm sure some tech-genius's do somewhere, but the majority of people using the Internet really don't have a clue how it works, they just log on and surf away.
I think we should be more like that with our prayer life. You don't have to understand how it works or have it all figured out. All you need is the basic equipment, a relationship with Christ and the ability to speak your heart, and you're good to go. Your knowledge of how to pray will increase the more you do it, just like surfing the net. God is available all the time, all you have to do is open your heart and let your mouth talk to Him. You don't even have to be plugged into something, He's been wireless for centuries now. (He's way ahead of the times)
So we recently re-designed the website for KC Life Church and added tons of new content. It's turning into quite the little online resource and community builder...if you have a few moments (and of course you do because you just wasted 3 minutes reading this) you should run over and check it out....
www.kclifechurch.com
peace,
glo
Friday, April 20, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
walking by beauty
A friend and fellow blogger recently posted this article on his blog and I think it's awesome...take a few minutes out of your day and check it out.
He emerged from the Metro at the L'Enfant Plaza Station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?
On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
The violinist was world-renowed Joshua Bell. He was playing a violin worth over $3.5 million. He made a total of $32.17 over the course of an hour.
peace,
glo
He emerged from the Metro at the L'Enfant Plaza Station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work, which meant, for almost all of them, a government job. L'Enfant Plaza is at the nucleus of federal Washington, and these were mostly mid-level bureaucrats with those indeterminate, oddly fungible titles: policy analyst, project manager, budget officer, specialist, facilitator, consultant.
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time and your wallet? Do you throw in a buck, just to be polite? Does your decision change if he's really bad? What if he's really good? Do you have time for beauty? Shouldn't you? What's the moral mathematics of the moment?
On that Friday in January, those private questions would be answered in an unusually public way. No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?
The violinist was world-renowed Joshua Bell. He was playing a violin worth over $3.5 million. He made a total of $32.17 over the course of an hour.
peace,
glo
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