Saw this picture on Messy Christian's blog today. My response: WOW.
Beautiful and provocative. It's so holy, so humble, so full of love and empty of self... It's a powerful way to see the servant Christ whom we also serve. What better way to follow Him than to be like Him in His servanthood? Is there any other way to find freedom from self than to lose myself in the service of others?
(I'd certainly like to know where this painting comes from.. anyone?)
from CNN Health, LONDON, England -- 'Six minutes of pure, hard exercise a week could be just as effective as an hour of daily moderate activity, according to a new study.
"Short bouts of very intense exercise improved muscle health and performance comparable to several weeks of traditional endurance training," said Martin Gibala, an associate professor at Canada's McMaster University.
The research, published in the June edition of the Journal of Applied Physiology, says that repeatedly doing very intense exercise such as sprinting resulted in unique changes in skeletal muscle and endurance capacity, similar to training that requires hours of exercise each week.'
Boy, do I love these kinds of studies! For the time-squeezed and exhausted city rat, this may be the best news revealed ever... The 1/2 hr gym quickie routine may not be so bad after all!
Both Joan and I grew up on this stuff. My wife used to get dumped at Popular Book Store on Cecil Street while her mom did marketing, and I've walked up and down the same street millions of times going to school and Chinese classes at Kwong Siew Temple. Such were our childhood memories - of hawking, spitting Chinamen, drains clogged with last year's refuse, the hollering of buy-one-free-one and fresh apples, and the wafting aromatic mix of every kind of Chinese kueh ever invented.
That's KL downtown for you.
'You yourself are the child you must learn to know, rear, and above all enlighten. To demand that others should provide you with textbook answers is like asking a strange woman to give birth to your baby. There are insights that can be born only of your own pain, and they are the most precious. Seek in your child the undiscovered part of yourself.'
- Janusz Korczak (1878-1942, Polish-Jewish children´s writer and educator who is as well known in Europe as Anne Frank. Like her, he died in the Holocaust and left behind a diary; unlike her, he had a chance to escape that fate-a chance he chose not to take.)
Reading through the last pages of Yancey's collection of authors-review-sifu-authors (More Than Words Can Say), I was very heartened by what Calvin Miller had to say about Ray Bradbury's worldview streaming through his books.
He says: 'Bradbury warns us away from any science that leaves no room for imagination; I find a similar danger at work in some Christian circles. The gospel itself may be made harsh by precepts void of warm narrative. In spite of the fact that the Bible is filled with parables and stories, our zeal to evangelize and to encounter secular cultures with moral reform has shackled evangelicals to deadening presuppositions. These presuppositions do not kill because they are false (they are indeed true) but because they strip away mystery and process - the very ingredients of a good story. In their evangelistic intensity some Christians see fiction as a waste of time in a lost society where so many are "perishing in hell."'
"Quietude, even in the purely outward sense, means a great deal to our inward composure. Not until we have come apart from those things which divert our attention to outward things, are our souls free to engage in inward activity. Or perhaps we should speak first of that inward, passive state known as the devotional attitude. As soon as outward things lose their distracting influence over our soul-life, God Himself can attune our souls to prayer, because we are in a devotional attitude."
Hallesby, O. Prayer. Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis. 1931. Pg. 93
Michael McGannon's book The Urban Warriors Book of Solutions was a chance find in the library. The title simply caught my eye. It's a book chock full of scientific wisdom for health in the fast-track. I loved what he says about those who don't learn to live life rightly, will need the heart attack they are headed for in order to learn!
Among the pearls of wisdom he drops:
''Happiness is not the absence of change but the ability to effectively deal with it. Therefore, we should devote most of our energies and resources to upgrading our personal abilities to deal more effectively with change."
"Many of us will go into one or another walk of life because of secondary needs (security, money, respect), but altogether neglect the inner potential that aches for self-realization."
The chapter on "Staying Sane Against All Odds" is my favorite and I list here some key lessons that are the take home message for me.
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