This past weekend we took our son to visit my wife’s great grandmother in Virginia. It was a pretty amazing experience. We were able to take some pictures of my son, my wife, my mother-in-law, her mother, and her grandmother…5 generations in one room. Very cool.

B-Real is the front man for the hip-hop group Cypress Hill. This post is not about him. Just FYI.

I work with a Christian girl, we’ll call her Margie, who has always gone out of her way to talk to everyone about more than just the weather or what was going on in the restaurant at the moment. At first it seemed very sweet. But over time it began to seem less and less genuine. I can’t put my finger on it, but she just seemed like she was faking it. This was the first time I’d noticed it in anyone, but it’s something worth mentioning.

Many Christians who aren’t in paid ministry positions are encouraged to evangelize their workplace, and the method that is en vogue right now is “relationship evangelism”. It’s a simple concept - one that I’m sure we’ve all tried ourselves. It would seem to many of us that the days when you could grab someone, tell them the gospel, and expect them to make a commitment to Christ on the spot have passed (or maybe we just feel that way because of fear…I’ll have to come back to that later).

This method of evangelism is difficult because two things have to happen: The person has to like you; and you have to convince them that you actually care about them. Achieving the latter usually helps with the former. So, many people set out to make new, non-Christian friends with the intention of converting them. They know that they have to show they care about the person…there’s just one small problem. Sometimes, the would-be evangelist cares mainly about the conversion (the notch on the belt) rather than the person. So they fake it. (continue reading…)

Yesterday the New York Times Science section and today Good Morning America reported on a new study that came out in Nature: Why Pregnant Women Don’t Tip Over.

Now, I don’t subscribe to the journal, so I don’t know if that’s the title of the research paper, but it is the title of both the article and the GMA segment. They credit evolution with the design. Some absolutely surreal lines:

“Even without the benefit of advanced study in biomechanics, women tend to deal with the shift — and avoid tumbling over like a bowling pin — by leaning back.”

“‘Katherine was a genius for thinking of that,’ she said. ‘And you go, “Hey — why didn’t we think of that before? It seems so obvious now.”‘”

Those are from the NYT, and these from GMA:

“Science is offering an answer to a burning question about physics and pregnancy…”

“There have been thousands and millions of women who have simply fell over, right on their face, because of the fact that the center of gravity was pushed forward.”

(continue reading…)

The Christmas war has begun anew. It’s not quite like it has been in recent years for me, mainly because I haven’t been paying very much attention. But I was listening to O’Reilly for a few minutes today and it all came screaming back to me. Some days I can’t get enough of the ridiculous ranting from people who think that it’s important whether or not people say “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. Other days I don’t want to hear it at all.

Chris has some good thoughts over at Rend The Heavens:

This fight to keep “Merry Christmas” alive is going to be fought year after year and probably will eventually end with “holiday” being the victor. HOWEVER, if we focused our efforts on expanding the Kingdom of God, not simply a holiday… not a culture… not the Kingdom of America… then maybe, we’d see the result that we need: Everyone bowing their knee to Jesus and acknowledging them as Savior and LORD.

I’m with him totally. For all intents and purposes, Christmas is a secular holiday. The celebration of Jesus birth is completely separated from the trees and the presents and the “peace on earth and good will towards men” business. For many Jesus is just another ornament on the tree. The way we celebrate (and the things we get riled up about) show that our priorities are way out of whack.

Related: Anti-Christmas Christians, Much Ado About Christmas

So, yesterday the local forecast was upper 40’s Wednesday rising to mid 50’s by Sunday.  Now it’s 35 rising to mid 40’s, then falling to freezing on Saturday. I’m sure it’ll change again by then.  Explain to me why I should trust someone to tell me what’s going to happen across the globe 100 years from now, when they can’t tell me what’s going to happen here in two days?

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