Beginning or End – Amazing Insight Today

The journey with Christ, on day one, rises forward from the point where all other religions, philosophies, affections and pursuits aspire to attain at their final peak.

I was blown away by this idea while listening to a podcast this morning featuring Pastor Bobby Pruitt from Hill Country Bible Church Hutto.  The religions of the world provide men with a complicated map to Nirvana that only the most faithful and moral can even hope to attain, in some cases, even after many life times.  Philosophies fare even worst at their final destination as they rarely recognize God or the need for transcendence. All earthly affections struggle to achieve unity and unconditional, sacrificial love and none ever attains it. And all the ladders of success rising above the mountains like our own personal towers of Babel confound and haunt us with their beautiful view of all we can survey as far as our eyes can see – for we are left to wonder, “Is this all there is?”

None of these in their highest imagined zenith, much less the real ledge far below that might realistically be attained in the short morning walk that measures the brief life of a man, comes close to attaining what Christ brings to those who love him on day one of their life together.  And that is only the commencement – the beginning.  The Bible say Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.   It says the lamb was slain before the foundation of the earth and it says that only he will be able to open the scrolls that will complete history on this earth.  So all the starts begin after his provision for us and after his creation of us.  And all ends do not touch his.  All of mans effort to find perfection fall short – but Christ is not asking us to obtain this elusive and impossible perfection, he gives us his perfection by joining his life to our own – as a wedding gift.  We only have to say, I do.

Becoming Well Read – Update

Currently reading Middlemarch by George Eliot – but I’m on chapter nine of 86 so it will be awhile before I blog about this book.  In the meantime, I have completed, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni  and will blog about it this weekend.

Other exploration this weekend – I will be attending a workshop titled Listening – The 4th “R” – Uncovering the Forgotten Business Tool.  This is being conducted by Mike O’Krent who I’ve known with for some time and by Jacqueline Rixen.  I’m excited to be able to attend.

Mike O’Krent, founder of LifeStories Alive, LLC, makes personal history videos for families that value their heritage. Mike interviewed Holocaust survivors for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. During that incredible experience, he learned valuable listening skills and discovered the importance of recording the life stories of our loved ones. http://www.lifestoriesalive.com/about.html

Jacqueline Rixen  is an Austin attorney who uses listening every day to help her clients accomplish their legal goals.  She has over 20 years experience as a lawyer and many more years as a listener. http://www.rixenlaw.com

The Great Gatsby

In creating my list of novels to read (via audio book), I analyzed and combined several lists:  Times Top 10, Top 100 From Real People and the Modern Day Readers list from the panel and from readers.  Only two books make all four lists when combined and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was the higher weighted of the two.  This is incredibly impressive considering The Great Gatsby sold only 25,000 copies from the time of it’s release in 1925 until Fitzgerald’s death 15 years later.

Fitzgerald’s writing style and literary skill is impressive in this book. The characters are so rich and vivid that you feel as if you are at a party with them and know exactly with whom you should and should not mingle. The book exposes the American Dream as materialism, pride, and class snobbery with a side dish of hypocrisy, pure cruelty and gross relational insincerity.   While the book presents a cynical view, it is a lens that could equally be applied to modern American culture and many do.  The lack of trust and honesty by the characters speaks so loudly that all other potentially redeeming qualities such as Gatsby’s attempt at sacrificial love echo back the much deeper self-centered obsession instead.

I enjoyed the book but was a little disappointed by the ending, even though it was congruent with the rest of the story.  You want to hope things will turn out better despite the evidence to the contrary.