Ozark Oddments: Giving thanks...

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Giving thanks...

Somewhere in my scattered collection of books is a thin paperback, “Prison to Praise,” which chronicles one man’s journey in faith; specifically, the power that offering praise to God in the midst of all circumstances (ALL circumstances) has to effect a change in those circumstances. I’m going to have to dig it out. Our son is in a headlong rush toward the edge of the cliff, and there isn’t a thing we can do about it. Nothing. Our hands are tied, and all we can do is watch with a helpless, angry feeling as he shows every indication that he is going to make what seems to us to be the second worst mistake of his life (the first worst mistake is his apparent decision to turn is back on God and go his own way). I heard this song by the Newsboys the other morning as I drove to work, and it lifted my spirits. I guess I need to get my mind off the circumstances and focused on God where it belongs.

It's the song of the redeemed
Rising from the African plain
It's the song of the forgiven
Drowning out the Amazon rain
The song of Asian believers
Filled with God's holy fire
It's every tribe, every tongue, every nation
A love song born of a grateful choir

It's all God's children singin'
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

Let it rise above the fore-winds
Caught up in the heavenly sound
Let praises echo from the towers of cathedrals
To the faithful gathered underground
Of all the songs sung from the dawn of creation
Some were meant to persist
Of all the bells rung from a thousand steeples
None rings truer than this

It's all God's children singin'
Glory, glory, hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns

And all the powers of darkness
Tremble at what they've just heard
Cause all the powers of darkness
Can't drown out a single word
When all God's children sing out
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
All God's children sing out
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
All God's people sing out
Glory, Glory Hallelujah
He reigns, He reigns
****
Guess I need to start singing... he just walked in the door...

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Thoughts to ponder

Most of us go through life so absorbed in the cocoon of ourselves that we rarely stop to consider the other. Of course, we think that we do; indeed, we may pride ourselves on our capacity for empathy; we may be considerate and thoughtful in our dealings with others, but how often do we stand before them. so to speak, and experience what it is to be them?--Domenica Macdonald

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, by Alexander McCall
Smith

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Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering -- because you can't take it in all at once. --Audrey Hepburn

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I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.--Agatha Christie

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Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.--Katharine Hepburn

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One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

"Two people... told me that the word "Christian" would turn people off. I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is. I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities. I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word "Christian" means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thoughness. Who, today, can recognize a Christian because of "how those Christians love one another"?--Madeline L'Engle, "A Circle of Quiet"