Tag Archives: The Daily Post

Ready, Set, Done

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/ready-set-done-7/

The daily post has given us this instruction today…

As it’s been a while since our last free-write… set a timer for ten minutes. Write without pause (and no edits!) until you’re out of time. Then, publish what you have (it’s your call whether or not to give the post a once-over).

To see how others have spent their ten minutes click on the link above.

Here is what I have been thinking today.

Christ Came To Us So That We Might Go To Him

As it is the Christmas season I am preparing, per usual, a funeral service. It seems that every year about this time I find myself doing at least one or two of these funeral events. I suppose it is all part and parcel of being a pastor, and I suppose some would find that really sad. I don’t. Well let me qualify that I don’t find it sad if the funeral I am doing is like the one I am putting together right now. The man who has gone on before us was a Christian man, Not a perfect man, not a man who had it all figured out but a Christian man. He was one of the men who understood that he had nothing to offer God in himself but that God had everything to offer him. And this man chose to take God up on His offer.

I suppose some might think Christmas is a terrible time to do a funeral (like it would be less terrible at some other time of the year…trust me for those left behind there is no good time for death to happen). I think there is another way to look at death at this particular holiday season, though. You see, one way to understand the incarnation of Christ is to see it as God paving the road from Heaven to Earth through the first advent, Christ’s birth. Death at this season then can be seen as a man or  a woman taking the very same road in the opposite direction. Before Christ there was no road into the presence of the Father. The way was shut and those who died had no direct access to the kingdom of Heaven. Today because of Christmas or because of Christ’s coming the way is open and this man this imperfect man who didn’t have it all together but who knew and trusted Jesus has now taken the long road Home! Today  that man is singing “Joy To The World” in a different place and while that is sad for those of us who miss him, I find it hard to begrudge him the Christmas gift he has waited for all these many years.

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Nothing For Everything

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

 

 

Today The Daily Post has asked this probing question:

Which do you find more dangerous: wanting nothing, or wanting everything?

You can discover how others have answered by going to:

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/all-or-nothing/

If there is one thing I have learned in all my years of pastoring it is that most extremes of anything are unhealthy and sometimes dangerous.

Wanting nothing  is a mindset I am all too familiar with. In my own case it has expressed itself in the thought process, “If I want nothing then I will not be disappointed when I receive it.”

On the surface it can look like a deep-seated contentment and peaceful acceptance of the world but underneath it is fueled by my own spirit of self-protectionism, which crowds out healthy relationships, and a lack of faith which cuts me off from God.

On the other hand is the mindset of wanting everything. Now if  the proviso “I want everything…that God wants me to have” is included then what you have is a lifestyle of positive forward-pressing faith. But wanting it all generally precludes any thought of whether or not God wants us to have it.  God generally doesn’t want us to have everything because He knows we cannot handle it; So wanting everything often leads us into places of dangerous disobedience to the Divine.

So let’s sum up here: Wanting nothing breeds unbelief. Wanting everything breeds disobedience to God. Both sound pretty dangerous to me. I think I am with Solomon on this one.

give me neither poverty nor riches,
    but give me only my daily bread.
9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
    and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
    and so dishonor the name of my God. Prov. 30:8,9

Pastor Wrinkles On Why,I Can Make It Anywhere!

Posted on by under Pastor Wrinkles

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/make-it-anywhere/

Today the Daily Post has asked…“If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere,” goes the famous song about New York City. Is there a place — a city, a school, a company — about which you think (or thought) the same? Tell us why, and if you ever tried to prove that claim.

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I’ve never made it out of my hometown. Something of pain or shame exists in that admission and I am not really sure why. I suppose it means that somewhere in my younger self there was this dream that lived for a time in the understanding that I was made for “bigger” things… “bigger” places. Yet something held me at the borders of my own lands. What was it? A spell? A fear? A psychic wall? A dream? A Calling?

My mother wanted me to be a doctor. My father, I think, wanted me to be anything that got me away from this place that I never got away from. My sister has moved all over the world and my children (some of them) display the same signs of wanderlust that leads to adventure while I live like a Hobbit never wanting to stray too far from my own front door.

I think maybe the shame and guilt of only making it as far as my own garden might have more to do with the dreams of others than with my own dreams. For as long as I can remember I only ever aspired to a quiet life of pastoral bliss, walking the rocky New England Fields and listening to the bubbling of the stony fresh-water brooks that dot our landscape. I want to hear the twittering of the birds in the trees and feel the winds of these Massachusetts seasons as they pass over me in repose.

I want to see the world, truly see the world from my own vantage point, the place where I was planted by the Great Himself. I think it has been given to others to run the earth as they watch the sky. They must do that for themselves to succeed. If I can stand and occupy this little space for a time, my time, then that is “big” enough and I can make it “anywhere”, which after all is only ever really “here”.

 

Wicked Sorry! But I Know How Tough You Are

Posted on by under For Family & Fun

The Daily Post has asked, “If your furniture, appliances, and other inanimate objects at home had feelings and emotions, to which item would you owe the biggest apology?”

See who else has been offended at

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/wronged-objects/

Now on to my written apology:

Dear Mr. Floor,

I wish to apologize for my behavior over these last several months. Please know what was done was not done with premeditation or malice  of forethought in any way shape or form.

Really I didn’t know that dog urine stripped varnish and he really is just a puppy and the other two were just following suit. And to be fair I did thoroughly clean up the mess using lots of that pet spray. What’s that you say? Oh that strips varnish too? Who knew?

Please know that I had only your best interests at heart when I sealed the hole the squirrels had gnawed through the shingling. I certainly didn’t want them chewing through your fine wooden outfits anywhere else in the house. I did try to make sure they were all out before I sealed the hole. How was I to know Mrs. Squirrel was stuck inside? I am sure you won’t smell like this forever, and really everyone blames me anyway. You are in the clear on this one even if you do stink.

As to the carpets I know they are old and perhaps I do not vacuum them enough but did you really have to cause my vacuum cleaner to burst into flames on Thanksgiving weekend?

I hope this letter will go the distance of restoring peace between us Mr. Floor. Let’s just say I won’t be putting together the new vacuum I bought until I have a satisfactory reply from you.

 

Sincerely,

JE Lillie

P.S. I know it has been my habit to walk all over you. In the future this will probably not change. I hope that does not offend too much.

Just For Me Not For Thee

Posted on by under For Family & Fun

The Daily Post has asked, “What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received that you wouldn’t give to anyone else? Why don’t you think it would apply to others?”

You can find out how others responded by going to
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/not-for-thee/

I suppose it is not JUST for me but I definitely know it’s not for everyone. The best piece of advice I ever received came directly from God and it was the call from Him to become a full-time minister of the gospel.

Ministry is not just a job. It’s a calling, which is to say it is not what I do but what I am. The line between working in ministry and being a full-time minister is drawn when ministry stops being something you do and becomes something you are. I could no more stop being a minister than I could stop being a white guy. At this point in my life it has less to do with my particular job than it does with how I go about my particular job. It ain’t for everyone because it ain’t who everyone is.
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My Safer Extremities

Posted on by under For Family & Fun, Uncategorized

The Daily Post has asked us to describe the last time our lives mimicked the quote, “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” Charles Dickens

If you would like to see how others have answered that question go to:
http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/an-extreme-tale/

It is amazing to me that I can think of the worst times of my life so easily and it seems more than a little bit odd that I have a hard time remembering the best times. I am not sure what that says about me and perhaps it cues a desire to change my inner thought processes.

The mixing of those moments though is indeed hard to whittle out of the block of wood that has become my past.Maybe I am still too stunned by some of my recent worst times to see much good in them, though God knows I have tried. Maybe too, it seems almost inappropriate to say that certain of my worst moments could have any redeeming qualities at all; So maybe the difficulty is not so much in finding a moment that holds the best and the worst but in finding one that feels safe enough to speak openly about.

I am reaching for a moment in my distant past now (25 years or better). I was a newlywed. How could it get any better? We had married and moved in with my parents for a two month stint before our apartment opened up in Phoenixville PA.

It was the weekend before the New Year, 1988. The Uhaul was rented and loaded with all of our earthly belongings. My Father-in-law drove the van and Tina and I drove our car. What should have been a six-hour drive turned into twelve hours when we got lost on the NJ Turnpike and overshot our exit.

I noticed as we came down the I76 out of Philadelphia that the lock had come undone to the moving van and the back doors were threatening to spill open. Anybody who has ever tried to pull over on that particular road heading out of Philly will understand my pain; But pull over we did. We managed to fix the door only to become separated from each other as we made our way past the Allen Town Extension. These were the days before Mapquest or GPS systems.My father-in-law had never been to the campus. But we serve a God of miracles. We somehow found each other at the light before the turnoff to the college and upon arrival my father-in-law did not insist his daughter get back in the van to take her away from her new whackadoo husband.

We walked into our new apartment. The walls were a neon blue. The rug was a thick shag in the brightest of oranges. Someone else’s couch lined our wall. A window pane had been knocked out of the bedroom and someone had stolen the shower head right out of the shower. Then my wife noticed we had no oven and what amounted to a hot plate to cook off of.

My mother-in-law gripped her daughter’s hand as she looked up dubiously at the walls and said, “It’s amazing what soap and water can do Honey.”

By the following day we had a new shower head and the window had been fixed. The tenant who had stored his couch in our apartment came to get it and we were completely settled into our new place (well as settled as you can get when your walls are blue and your carpet is orange). My in-laws had said a tearful good-bye and Tina and I had begun the first chapter of our lives together. The best of times and the worst of times.

Spring?

Posted on by under Photography

This post was written in response to the Daily Post’s weekly photo challenge: SPRING

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/spring-2/

I actually do feel pretty springish today. It’s not that the traditional things like daffodils or tulips are abounding anywhere (even the first dandelions haven’t budded yet) but this was us two short  weeks ago.

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So the fact that today my world looks like this

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gives me hope that spring has finally arrived!

 

Family Circle

Posted on by under Photography

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“There is no such thing as a “broken family.” Family is family, and is not determined by marriage certificates, divorce papers, and adoption documents. Families are made in the heart. The only time family becomes null is when those ties in the heart are cut. If you cut those ties, those people are not your family. If you make those ties, those people are your family. And if you hate those ties, those people will still be your family because whatever you hate will always be with you.”
―     C. JoyBell

Today’s theme from the Daily Post is: Karma or Circle  http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/daily-prompt-karma-chameleon/

I am not a big believer in karma but I do believe what the Bible says “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Prov. 18:20

I also think that the bold quote above by C.JoyBell is true. Families are simply complicated. At the end of the day when you sit down around the circle of the dinner table you may not see eye to eye but disagreement doesn’t trump love. Blood is thicker than water and love is thicker than both transcending all. It may not bring me good karma but I hope what I have spoken brings life to some heart out there.