There is no situation so chaotic that God cannot from that situation create something that is surpassingly good. He did it at the creation. He did it at the cross. He is doing it today.
— Handley Moule, Bishop of Durham
There is no situation so chaotic that God cannot from that situation create something that is surpassingly good. He did it at the creation. He did it at the cross. He is doing it today.
— Handley Moule, Bishop of Durham
Beginning more than 2,500 years ago, from all quarters of the Greek world men thronged every four years to the sacred grove of Olympia, under the shadow of Mount Cronus, to compete in the most famous athletic contests of history—the Olympian games. During the contest a sacred truce was observed among all the states of Greece as the best athletes of the Western world competed in boxing and foot races, wrestling and chariot races for the wreath of wild olive which was the prize of victory. When the winners returned to their home cities to lay the Olympian crown in the chief temples they were greeted as heroes and received rich rewards.
For the Greeks prized physical excellence and athletic skills among man’s greatest goals and among the prime foundations of a vigorous state. Thus the same civilizations which produced some of our highest achievements of philosophy and drama, government and art, also gave us a belief in the importance of physical soundness which has become a part of Western tradition; from the mens sana in corpore sano of the Romans to the British belief that the playing fields of Eaton brought victory on the battlefields of Europe. This knowledge, the knowledge that the physical well-being of the citizen is an important foundation for the vigor and vitality of all the activities of the nation, is as old as Western civilization itself. But it is a knowledge which today, in America, we are in danger of forgetting.
— John F. Kennedy, “The Soft American,” Sports Illustrated (December 1960)
The title for this post is not quite a Jimmy Buffett song or book title, but it's pretty darn close to both! Only time will tell if it's close enough to rile up the copyright police into sending me a take down notice, ha ha ha. But seriously, before you file that copyright complaint, I am turning fifty soon, so it fits.
If you're reading this, you probably came from simply, Christian where I wrote for almost eighteen years. That blog ended with a Jimmy Buffett quote, so it's only fitting to shore these blogs together.
If you ended up here via some magical internet algorithm, here's the super-short summary. There is a lot of content at simply, Christian, but changes in ministry and church setting—to say nothing of changes in attitudes (see what I did there?)—prompted a fresh start, so here we are. You can go read why I wrapped things up there and even poke around a bit if you'd like, but you don't have to.
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index
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