I Love this Commercial—-Nike Find Your Greatness
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz1gWajl0g8
American Gothic
Here’s How I Remember the American Gothic Home in Eldon, Iowa
What makes something truly iconic?
Iconic may be actually too strong of a word for the American Gothic painting. You know the one: Small Country house, and standing out front the farmer and his wife, complete with pitchfork. A bit creepy in some ways, their faces stoic as if they had just lost their crop of corn to a ferocious storm from the Northwest.
The original house from the painting was located just a couple of blocks (if they could be called blocks) from my father’s small, mission Southern Baptist Church in the run-down, hard-luck times farming community of Eldon, Iowa. We were familiar with folks stopping us to ask “Where’s that there house that was in that there famous painting?”, often said with a country twang. More often then not, as we leaned down to give them directions (“around the corner, on the right, can’t miss it”) inevitably there would be a pitchfork (or pitchfork like object, often a broom) and a camera on the back seat.
Another couple stands to capture themselves in iconic history.
The house, as all houses do, went through various changes while I was growing up. Sometimes the house was occupied with families who actually lived there. Other times, it set empty for months and fell into disrepair. I think it now has historical status and protection.
I’m a big fan of Mental Floss, so I really enjoyed their take on the American Gothic painting. You can read it HERE.
For a more historical look at the house itself, visit this website put together by Wapello county.
Watching the Olympics
I’ll admit it, I’m an Olympic Junky. I love watching the games. All of them. Skeet. Gymnastics. Rowing. Judo. Archery. And on and on…..
I really appreciated what David Mathis had to say about How to Watch the Olympic Games.
I had read this verse before:
“Everyone who competes in the games,” writes the apostle Paul, “exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable” (1 Corinthians 9:25).
But I never knew until tonight that Paul was actually talking about Olympic Games. Wow. Read what John Piper has to say about this verse:
“When Paul wrote these words to the Corinthian Christians, he assumed that they all knew about the games. The Olympic Games took place in Greece every four years without interruption from 776 BC until they were suppressed by the Emperor Theodosius in AD 393. That’s 1,169 years. Everyone knew about the games. So Paul didn’t have to explain the games. Everybody was aware of the games then. And everybody is aware of the games today.”
What does this teach me?
First: I need to transpose the Olympics watching experience. These athletes train and exercise self-control in all things, for a perishable medal. As amazing as that is, I practice spiritual disciplines for an imperishable wreath–one that will never turn to rubbish.
Second: The scripture remains relative to my life today, so many years after those words by Paul were written. God seeks to teach. God seeks to mold and discipline me-us-into who He would have us to be.
Black Knight Rises
I took my crew to the new Batman movie this afternoon. I had promised the kids we would go, but I must admit that I almost canceled our plans after the horrific massacre in Aurora, CO. Not out of fear, but out of respect for those who had lost their lives.
The movie was good. Very good. We thoroughly enjoyed it.
But how do we make sense of such a senseless act of violence? The largest mass shooting in America? Carefully thought-out, cold-bloodily calculated, with an apartment booby-trapped in such a sophisticated way that the police had to perform a controlled detonation to remove the dangers inherent in accessing the apartment?
We don’t. We don’t make sense of it any more than we make sense of the Oklahoma City bombing or 911, or the bombing of airliners over Lockerbie, or any other number of senseless crimes that take lives, that scar people deeply, whether it be on a large scale or a small one-to-one abusive scale. Both of which can be just as traumatizing.
So where is our security? Where is our safety?
Psalm 12 states:
5: “Because the poor are plundered, because the needy groan, I will now arise” says the Lord; “I will place him in the safety for which he longs,”
Yes, in the movie, the Black Knight rises. But here in scripture, which is truth, we see that the real knight will now arise, and will place us; will place me in the safety for which I long.