Author: Ron Baker

An author proclaimed he disliked bumper sticker theology.

That’s where someone writes something in a short sentence summing up myriads of thought and consideration over centuries of discussion and debate. 

I love bumper stickers.  I have a feeling this author did too!  His article was full of pithy sayings.  “We don’t live to survive, or even thrive, but to serve.”  Not bad.

But here is the one that really struck me.  “Let’s die facing the right direction.”  Never in retreat, always in advance.  That’s how I want to live! 

The preceding comments brought to inspired by the latest Promise Keepers book The Awakening Experience.  [Which book is not on a Canadian website – you have to phone 1-888-901-9700]

Here’s a word for you!

I love to play with words.  Once in a while one comes along that is hard to define.  So you look it up in etymological dictionaries.  They give great background and history for words.  Or you go to lectures and listen to great academic explanations.

And sometimes the word pops up in popular language of certain subcultures.  I was a part of an age specific class called a “koinonia” group.  And we had “koinonia fellowships”. 

All well and good!

But today I’m reading my Arndt and Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, second edition, p. 438.

Koinonia – a favorite expression for the marital relationship as the most intimate between human beings.

We generally translate this word as . . . fellowship.  Kind of puts a new light on our Sunday potlucks!

Computer programming is fun!

And dangerous!  Yesterday I tried a little updating on this blog.  Of course, I violated the cardinal rule of computer programming.  Always have a backup. 

When I was finished, the site had errors and much more!  No blog!

So I phoned my friend and he restored the original (which he had put together for me)! 

Friends are great – we need them!!

You guessed it, Dejan!

I was filling my car and emptying my wallet.  The gas pump was playing soothing music. 

I’m thrown back to yesteryear.  I remember sitting by a rail way track as the “100 car” train went by. 

Got out of the car and heard the click, click, click.  There was no way to cross the track.  The most important meeting had to wait.

This is the moment in time when life stops.  Just me, the sky and the train!  I look around and see the world. 

The world that I’ve shut out. 

In our busy-ness we miss the cricket, and the waving grain, and the petite blue flowers, and the color of the gravel supporting the darkened wood ties that hold the thin steel line supporting the round discs holding the boxes of freight on their way to who knows what earthly destination.

The sound of peace and calm.

Until the price on the pump proved well able to overcome my enjoyment!!