United Methodist Church leaders helped launch a week of protest and civil disobedience against the war in Iraq by signing a declaration of peace urging President Bush to pull U.S. troops out of the country.

This brings up an interesting question of where Church authority and governmental authority mix.

However, trying to look at this declaration from a Biblical perspective has a lot of issues in the first place… female bishops, the stance they are taking in the first place, authority structure, etc.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

[tags]bush, iraq, war, methodist, church[/tags]

Brother Lawrence, a Carmelite lay monk from the 1600s on prayer:

“I do not advise you to use multiplicity of words in prayer. Many words and long discourses are often the occasions of wandering. Hold yourself in prayer before God, like a dumb or paralytic beggar at a rich man’s gate. Let it be your business to keep your mind in the presence of the Lord. If your mind sometimes wanders, and withdraws itself from Him, do not much disquiet yourself for that. Trouble and disquiet serve rather to distract the mind than to re-collect it. The will must bring it back in tranquility. If you persevere in this manner, God will have pity on you. One way to re-collect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquility, is not to let it wander too far at other times.

Keep your mind strictly in the presence of God. Then being accustomed to think of Him often, you will find it easy to keep your mind calm in the time of prayer, or at least to recall it from its wanderings. I have told you already of the advantages we may draw from this practice of the presence of God. Let us set about it seriously and pray for one another.”

“One way to re-collect the mind easily in the time of prayer, and preserve it more in tranquility, is not to let it wander too far at other times.”

Wandering is a constant state for my mind. Sifting through the Internet, E-mails, various work concerns, various ministry concerns, now back to my family and needs to be attended to there… rarely do I let it NOT wander.

This is a discipline I must engage in. I have been feeling the need for it very pressingly lately. To be honest, I feel I’m on the verge of a melt-down: my mind racing faster and faster over different topics, and several large ones which are burning to be spoken about (you may have caught a glimpse of one a few days ago if you follow my blog.)

Pray that I will take the time to seek this sort of stillness of mind.

I was just checking the forecast and I noticed that tomorrow is Friday and it doesn’t look too nice out. Then I realized how many awesome Friday nights in a row we had for having The Rock outside at the terrace! Wow, God! Thanks for blessing us!

Kory
Originally uploaded by mushin.

I have uploaded a boatload of new photos from The Friday Night Rock to The Rock’s Flickr Photo Pool which you are welcome to join and contribute to, though I reserve moderator priviledges, which I rarely excercise… but we’d like to keep a modicum of quality in there… and also try to reduce redundancy..

There are some great shots of the New Rock Band and Tom Short taken by Ben Kregel and Adam Bauer. Enjoy.

The Newest Cyclone Fan
Originally uploaded by mushin.

Elena says: “I can’t believe the Cyclones lost the first Iowa/Iowa State football game of my life!!!”