Comments on: So Many Places to See

By: Jim Clark

Jim Clark — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:37:10 +0000

A dear friend of mine in California referred me to a sermon on divorce that his teaching pastor gave last Sunday, March 11.

I just heard it. It’s excellent. Of course, I like most anything by John Ortberg, who is no longer at Willow Creek and is now the teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church.

If you want to hear Ortberg’s message, go to http://www.mpccfamily.org. Click “Sermons online” and you’ll see John’s message from March 11.

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 13:44:43 +0000

I’m guessing you’ve already “SEEn ROCK CITY”

By: beverly

beverly — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:19:12 +0000

To ride a horse around the pyramids in Egypt…I WILL do this one day.

Jordan River

By: qb

qb — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:50:37 +0000

LOL, Russ - and worse, because the sun’s higher in the sky, there are 9 lanes of traffic but 15 vehicles abreast, and the swarms of thuk-thuks are running 1980s-vintage, 2-stroke engines belching unburned BTEX into your breathing zone.

Chiang Mai is a quantum leap upward in quality of life, and there’s always that leisurely run to the summit of Doi Suthep to work that reconstructed knee into shape. qb

By: Russ

Russ — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 06:41:34 +0000

Mike,
Bangkok? Trust me, you aren’t missing much. If you’ve been to Houston on a smoggy day in the middle of summer you’ve already had most of the Bangkok experience. Try Chiang Mai instead or maybe Siem Reap, Cambodia (Angkor Wat).

By: Arlene Kasselman

Arlene Kasselman — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 04:16:39 +0000

Mike
You’ve got to add Cape Town to that list.

By: Michael R.

Michael R. — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 03:28:50 +0000

Digging for the Truth (on the History Channel) was about Machu Picchu. I’d heard of it before but didn’t know much about it. Now I’ll have to add it to my list of places to see…someday.

Here’s the shows website:

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?mini_id=1337

Michael R.

By: Alex Howard

Alex Howard — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 03:27:33 +0000

Hey Mike! We talked about churches requring preachers to be married today during class, and I read this article I thought you might like =)

http://www.burnsidewriterscollective.com/general/2007/03/ill_have_the_marriage_please.php

By: qb

qb — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 02:37:56 +0000

Belinda, I know that that’s how it looks, because that’s what we moderns seem to try to do with every moral failure; find a way to justify it, explain it away, construct elaborate loopholes through the standard.

I think, though, that what we’re trying to do is figure out, as a practical matter, what it means to reconcile “divorce is sin” with “nothing can separate us from the love of Christ” and “He is faithful to forgive us of all sin” and “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Our gut - and the word of God - tell us that all sin (except B.A.T.H.S.) is forgivable, but we also fear that indiscriminate forgiveness is tantamount to license and an invitation to lawlessness…

Striking that balance without effectively condoning sinful behavior is easier in theory than it is in practice; but it is in practice where the grace of God really is needed and shows up, not in theory.

As Steve Jr. said, peace.

By: Belinda

Belinda — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 23:21:35 +0000

The place I most want to visit is the birthplace of my husband - Russia! It has always interested me, but now I want to see it all!

Both of my children have been through divorces, but it still scares me … are we finding “reason” to accept divorce?

By: Tammie Hacker

Tammie Hacker — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 23:16:29 +0000

If you want a real guide for Italy, take Beckie Weaver who teaches at Harding. She’s taught at HUF several semesters and she knows her way around the whole country and she’s taen me to most of it at one time or another. Tuscany and Cinqueterra are my two favorite places in Italy!Look on Tim’s blog artist-tim.blogspot.com to see a beautiful painting of San Gimignano. That is the neastest little town of towers to visit in Tuscany with lots of artists and craftsmen. Beautiful place, beautiful goods!

By: Ann

Ann — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 23:08:52 +0000

Al Maxey has a wonderful book on the subject of Divorce — “Down, But Not Out” You can find it by following the link on his homepage.

http://www.zianet.com/maxey/

He also has some good articles in the “Reflections” section of his website. Al was our minister in Honolulu, Hawaii during the late 90’s. I think you’ll enjoy his thoughtful way of studying the scriptures.

BTW - I love to travel and look forward to the day when we can take our young children to even more of God’s beautiful work. Right now we are a little milder until we can survive toddlerhood. We’ll have them backpacking through Europe eventually.

By: juditko

juditko — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:56:52 +0000

“… as well as to those who find themselves in a situation they perhaps couldn’t have imagined…”

Yeah, I could write the book on that one, huh, Mike?

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:49:22 +0000

I will go on the record admitting ignorance over Machu Picchu. And I will not even try to pronounce it, but I looked at Wikipedia, and it does look gorgeous!

I have been to Hawaii a couple of times, but I could go there every year and it would be just fine with me!

By: qb

qb — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:19:28 +0000

The wine regions of France? If you’re a history buff or have relatives who died in one of the World Wars, I can definitely recommend taking a train from Paris out to Reims and then driving through the Champagne country. It’s really stark - especially in winter - to see these unbelievably steep, chalky vineyards running uphill and downhill for mile after mile through countrysides pockmarked with little WWI cemeteries and little villages…and to see those village churches whose belfries served as German machine-gun nests. Time has sort of stood still out there, and the bleakness of February gives it a stark surreality. You can almost hear the screams of soldiers’ agony through the hedgerows around St. Etienne-a-Arnes from the battle of Blanc Mont (1918)…then you knock on the door of a local farmhouse, and the man of the house takes you out back to the little vegetable garden along the brook, shows you the cellar where the Germans set up their radios, you put your finger in the bullet holes in the walls…

And then you hop back in the car and drive through the Champagne, with vineyard after vineyard after cemetery after empty church after cemetery, some German, some Allied…and the monuments, with the craters and trenches and everything is so close at hand you wonder how anyone got out alive and the flowers blooming around the monument because the French caretaker still makes his daily rounds in behalf of the dead American boys that recaptured that little no-name hill near his grandmother’s house, only to give it back a few days later in a hail of thundering Austrian 88s and German 155s and that rolling inferno…and in the hazy afternoon light you step into a brasserie for a glass of Trappist ale and a sandwich of that otherworldly bread and that bone-dry saucisson, and the smoke and the memories are so thick your eyes can never adjust, and life is going on in the countryside, and the old man pays no mind to you or to your once-in-a-lifetime errand because he’s been making money off Americans like you all your life, and it’s all the same to him…you leave a few euros on the table and say goodbye in your mind, knowing that the veil is very thin here…

wistful qb, raising a toast