Church

With the end of the day, a walk is a good thing!

Out we ventured with Trixie, the dog.  The sky had poured forth most of the day.  By evening a slight wind had evaporated the worst of the splashes.

The lawn next door was growing mushrooms — a rarity for drought ridden prairies.  That was not the only encounter with the dome-topped sprouts.  Around the block we encountered further evidence of a higher than usual water table.

One yard had neatly trimmed grass.  The front yard included bricks and chipped wood arranged in pleasant patterns.  A few houses away the lawn was populated with various grass varieties along with plants of the weed variety.  At the corner two triangular shaped stones were engraved with paint signifying the address and the owner.

A truck passed and we waved.  Such is the custom of small town.  No idea who was in the truck other than another of God’s creations!  A young couple briskly navigated the cement sidewalk, intent on exercise with little talk.

Upon our return we settled in to an evening of Scrabble.  The withheld rain appeared once again. 

On the bright side of a cloudy evening, we don’t have to water the newly laid sod!

David Fitch has 10 signs that Christendom may be over.  A good (sometimes humourous) list that will start you thinking.  When the memory of a Christian society is no longer a part of our memory, we need to look new approaches to planting churches/congregations/groups.

I’m enjoying a bit more free time!  You may even see a few more daily entries!  Just for the fun of it — how about a picture to start your day?  Droop eyed and ready for the day??  Join this bovine in welcoming the day!!

Mentioned at a BBQ!

Shutting out the Sun is a book on the current demise of Japan.  Here is the description from the author’s website – www.shuttingoutthesun.com/

• The world’s second wealthiest country, Japan once seemed poised to overtake America. But its failure to recover from the economic collapse of the early 1990s was unprecedented, and today it confronts an array of disturbing social trends. Japan has the highest suicide rate and lowest birthrate of all industrialized countries and a rising incidence of untreated cases of depression. Even more troubling are the more than one million young men who shut themselves in their rooms ("hikikomori"), withdrawing from society, and the growing numbers of "parasite singles," the name given to single women who refuse to leave home, marry, or bear children.

Don Love, missionary to Japan, had been reading the book and brought it to our attention.  In fact, his teenage sons had also been reading it.  They will return to Japan in a few weeks and see this phenomenon up close and personal.

Interestingly, the author, Michael Sielenziger (a secular Jew), has some commendation for Christianity as the solution to some of the ills of Japanese society.