Paul Long's Ramblings

For the 24 February bulletin I am leading worship this morning and will be playing a video during service.  The lyrics of the song in the video can be found below. It is a song by a group called Celtic Thunder.  CHORUS:  All God's creatures got a place in the choir, Some sing low and some sing higher, Some sing out loud on the telephone wire, Some just clap their hands or paws or anything they got, now. REPEAT CHORUS Listen to the top where the little bird sings, And the melodies, and the high notes ringing, And the hoot-owl cries over everything, And the blackbird disagrees. Singing in the night time, singing in the day, And the little duck quacks, and he's on his way, And the otter hasn't got much to say, And the porcupine talks to himself. CHORUS The dogs and the cats, they take up the middle, Where the honeybee hums, and the cricket fiddles, The donkey brays, and the pony neighs, And the old gray badger sighs. ...

For the 17 February bulletin Ash Wednesday versus Valentine’s Day? The season of Lent began today (at the time of writing this) with Ash Wednesday which happens to fall on 13 th February. But I would suspect that for most of us, the more significant date that we would remember is the next day, 14 th February, Valentine’s Day. (In all fairness, though, Ash Wednesday falls on different dates each year). It struck me this morning that Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day do have something important in common. The connection may seems a little off tangent but let me try to explain. Ash Wednesday begins a 40 day period of prayer and fasting to remind us of the frailty of our humanity and the need to repent of our sins. It points us to the fact that we have an avenue for forgiveness because of what Christ has done for us on the cross. The cross while a reminder of the gravity of our sins that required Christ to suffer and die, is also at the same time a celebration of Christ’s love...

Sent to me by a Jewish joke list. I found it very funny but also make me a little envious And then a little rebuked about my workaholic tendencies ...

Another insightful quote by Henri Nouwen ... We often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every human behavior. God doesn't approve of betrayal, violence, hatred, suspicion, and all other expressions of evil, because they all contradict the love God wants to instill in the human heart. Evil is the absence of God's love. Evil does not belong to God. God's unconditional love means that God continues to love us even when we say or think evil things. God continues to wait for us as a loving parent waits for the return of a lost child. It is important for us to hold on to the truth that God never gives up loving us even when God is saddened by what we do. That truth will help us to return to God's ever-present love. - Henri Nouwen

I am glad that theses two writers John Stonestreet and Eric Metaxas are helping keeping Colson's Breakpoint commentaries relevant. Beyonce and the Super Bowl Guinea Pig Kids? John Stonestreet February 07, 2013 Rachel Campos-Duffy, a blogger on the Today Show’s “Moms” site, described Monday how watching the Super Bowl like millions of other families turned into a “parenting challenge” when the halftime show began. That’s putting the performance of Beyonce and her similarly half-dressed dancers mildly. The hyper-sensual show left Mrs. Campos-Duffy’s kids with a quizzical look on their faces. The eight-year-old simply said, “She looks weird.” If only all our kids were so confused. But sadly, so many of them are thoroughly familiar with sexuality packaged as music and performance. As Campos-Duffy wryly observed, “I half-expected a stripper pole to pop out of the platform, which was actually staged to look like a peep show.” Well, the commercial for the CBS sitc...

For the 10th February 2013 bulletin Pastor's notes resumes :-) Some post Family camp thoughts For those who missed our family camp, the theme the camp committee chose was  “Families are built not born”.  While we are born or adopted into a family, the purpose of the theme was to remind us that there is a difference between being part of a family and feeling a part of a family. 2 days of working, playing, talking, worshipping, learning, relaxing and eating together (and for some of us snoring together), really did help many of us feel like a big family. As we reflect on how to nurture and develop giving hearts (to build family / community), here’s some thoughts on family from Genesis 47:28-50:26 (which I have paraphrased from an article by Rabbi Shraga Simmons). Jacob, realizing he is about to die, gathers his 12 sons to receive a blessing. But first, Jacob calls upon two of his grandchildren, Joseph's sons Ephraim and Manasseh to receive blessings, rather than his child...