Lenten Thought

As we finish the first week of lent I thought it would be a good time to continue a discussion we had this morning in our Madmen group. Reading the story of the transfiguration the question came up, how have you transfigured since becoming a christian? For those who don't remember the scripture, Jesus had taken Peter, James and John up the mountain and while there his face shown bright and his clothing turned to white. Then Moses and Elijah appeared and begin talking with him.

What a glorious sight this must have been. Especially for these 3 jews who had grown up with the stories of these two historical figures. And those words "this is my beloved son whom I am pleased, Hear Him" had to reconfirm their actions in dropping everything and following him.

The question is after you have "heard him" how have you transformed? I don't think we should expect our faces to shine bright with light but they should shine bright with a smile. Our faces should show the brightness of love and understanding, not the darkness of divisiveness and hate. If we really "hear him" we know we should love our god and love our neighbors as our selves.

As I begin the second week of lent my hope is that I will continue to hear him and not let other things interfere with the signal.

Syd

Facebook is not that new

It's been a very long time since I actually wrote anything of substance or of anything on here. Blame it on Facebook. I now know why they call it crackbook. It is very addictive because its too easy. It reminds me of the old party lines we had growing up. For those who are too young to remember, this was when people had to share phone lines. We had an aunt who loved listening in on our phone calls. You could find out all the personal information from other people by simply picking up your phone and catching them talking. Not saying it happened alot but it did happen at times. Also growing up the local papers would have different churches and communities write basically a newsletter in their papers. It would go something like this, "We had 13 visitors this week at church. Jesse Hightower's aunt from Atlanta was visiting Jesse and Louise this week and we all enjoyed a church dinner Sunday. Also Mary Jones is in the hospital and remember such and such in your prayers".

Reading the local newspaper (which came once or twice a week depending on the paper) was our facebook. We knew who was getting married, who was sick or dead, who visited who over the week-end, who needed our prayers and what the school menu was going to be. This was all we needed to know. Mr. Bill wrote on a board if our school was closed for snow. If we needed to buy or sell something we didn't need Craigslists or Ebay we had WGOG and the Pickens Flea Market. If they didn't have it, you didn't need it.

So you see all this new technology is not all that new. We had all the technology we needed. If you wanted to know more, you just picked up the phone and listened.