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Fcb4: Frederick Christian Blauer iv
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Spokane Police are investigating a string of violent crimes, including four robberies last night. It is too early to determine if these cases are related or these crimes are evidence of a larger trend throughout the city.
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Can we get anymore Christian(?) crazies out and into the mainstream and internet highway? They are spawning like tadpoles in a pond or this age of mass media and instant access and publication power is revealing the underbelly of ugly fundamentalism like never before.
I know the Bible’s right, somebody’s wrong…ain’t no homos gonna make it to heaven
and the church gives him a standing ovation. I’m getting exhausted by having to be lumped by association into the ‘evangelical homophobic, bigot pew”. Please, please, please…shut your mouths.
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“The Law was like a strict governess in charge of us until we went to the school of Christ and learned to be justified by faith in him.” -Galatians 3:23-25
So have you “learned” how to be justified by faith?
Or have you been taught to be justified by law?
Do you base your sense of God’s pleasure of you based upon your performance or Christ’s perfection?
Are you justifying anything in your life base on how good you are in relationships, business, body image, education, prayer, bible education, wits, experience or age?
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Within days of the cop shop in East Central moving out of their location on 5th Avenue the gangs began to celebrate. I live across the street from this building and already I’ve noticed the police presence has dramatically dropped. It’s amazing how just moving the cop shop to the other side of the freeway has already changed the sense of safety.
Read more:
http://spokanefavs.com/blogs/eric-blauer/the-cop-shop-moves-out-and-the-gangs-are-moving-in -
This is Kamal, my friend from Iraq, he’s standing in front of some beautiful trees that are blooming at his apartment. I’ve been privileged to become a student of Middle Eastern culture, cuisine, politics and religion through my friendship with his family and friends. I am very grateful to God, who has enriched my life through these relationships and I hope I’ve been a good friend too.
There’s a big learning curve working with refugees and you often learn as much new stuff about yourself and your own culture, as you do about their culture. Relationships with internationals becomes a mirror from which you are able to see many things in a new light. My work and friendships with Internationals has reshaped my politics, broadened and deepened my faith, softened and broken my heart, angered, frustrated and shocked me and caused me to admire and be disappointed in my fellow citizens in many ways. I’ve learned about racism, poverty, injustice, hard work, family, food and a world that is far more complex, confusing, beautiful and rich than I ever thought it was six years ago before I got involved with refugees.
My exposure to organizations like World Relief, who introduced us to the work of resettling refugees, has given me a whole new way to practice my faith and pastor a church. The practical nature of helping someone learn and experience another way of living in a new country is a profound means of spiritual formation. This work has exposed my love of self in ways that few other things have, which means, repentance and faith are constantly being cultivated. The life and teachings of Jesus have come more alive and found greater foundation through serving in this way.
I’ve also seen how the community called the Church is God’s agent of welcome and hospitality in a world that is growing more and more inhospitable. Jesus articulated a way of being for His disciples in His sermon on the mount. In this sermon (Matthew 5), He talked about becoming “peace makers”, this is a ministry that I never truly appreciated until I began working with the issues that arise when multiple cultures mix. I’ve had to learn to think better and engage the issues of my time in history, in ways that I was never really taught in my Christian life. Refugee work brings matters of time and eternity into my daily life, I am forced to examine politics, religion, public policies, economics, and education in ways that I never had to before.
How we are choosing to grow kids, churches and communities has now become of greater importance than ever before. Praying and working for God’s Kingdom on Earth means way more to me today than before I was introduced to the real world through refugees.
Where else in your day to day life do you get the opportunity to taste pickled mango/mustard condiments, discuss the politics of Lebanon and Syria, the price of hair transplants in Turkey, America or Thailand, the behavior of cats, the complexities of truth in interfaith work, the dangers of urban life and avoiding criminals and how to properly use the bathroom or navigate the matters of religious discrimination in a city that has more pets than people from another country?
As I enter the last half of my life, I’m excited to see that learning about God, this big wide world, my country and city and myself will always be right outside my door, or a phone call away…thanks to my new International friends.
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Who’s having the best sex?
So which religious and non-religious group is having the best sex? The answers may surprise you. Here are the findings from the National Health and Social Life Survey (NHSLS), and the percentage of respondents who report “always having an orgasm” when they have sex with their primary partner. (Read more)
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6 years ago my life intersected with stories of refugees like Naw Bey Bey in the red in the photo.
She was captured and imprisoned for providing medical assistance to her people caught up in the military conflicts in Burma. Stories like hers broke my heart and pushed us to get involved. That was 6 years ago, now we run a community resource center to assist refugees with all the challenges of resettling in America. Our lives have been intertwined in ways I would of never planned or imagined.
Naw Bey Bey was recently let out of prison and is now in a refugee camp.
I pray for her peace and prosperity.
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Quote reblogged from For the Love of Wisdom and the Wisdom of LoveTo be lost in spiritlessness is the most terrible thing of all.Søren Kierkegaard (via acceptandembrace)
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Worrying is carrying tomorrow’s load with today’s strength- carrying two days at once. It is moving into tomorrow ahead of time. Worrying doesn’t empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.Corrie Ten Boom
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Priceless as the gift of utterance may be, the practice of silence in some aspects far excels it. Do not think me a Quaker. Well, be it so. Herein I follow George Fox most lovingly; for I am persuaded that most of us think too much of speech, which after all is but the shell of thought. Quiet contemplation, still worship, unuttered rapture, these are mine when my best jewels are before me. Brethren, rob not your heart of the deep sea joys; miss not the far-down life, by for ever babbling among the broken shells and foaming surges of the shore. (Lectures to My Students, 51).
— Charles Spurgeon
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To warriors future, past and present. I pray for you, your families and the nation that calls you to serve in our stead, may God lead us all to peace and may you find His help and grace in your journey.
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The Patriotism of Protest by Eric Blauer
http://spokanefavs.com/blogs/eric-blauer/the-patriotism-of-protest-this-memorial-day
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Today is Memorial Day, go to this site and pick a month or year and look at the faces of the men and women who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond. For example, look at May, 2012 in Afghanistan and remember the families mourning the loss of loved ones today. My posture on days like these is to Pray, Praise and Protest.
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“What’s with the beard?” said a middle age guy I hadn’t seen in a number of years, he asked me that…twice…in the same conversation. Really? Do I have to justify a growing a beard living in Washington in the great North West? I’m trolling for responses to this question. My wife said I should respond with: “Because I can.” I usually say, “It’s the NW, the land of Lumber Jacks and Fisherman.” What do you think are some good one line responses?
