Why so similar?

Firstly, Fort Knox.

Secondly, the Mormon Temple in Brisbane.

If you just photoshop out the palm trees...

:O

Quote #1

From Augustine:

He that is kind is free, though he is a slave;
he that is evil is a slave, though he be a king.

Naomi and Mara

Naomi leaves the promised land.

Naomi loses everything. Except Ruth.

Ruth is blessing to Naomi, despite Naomi telling her to leave.

Naomi returns.

Naomi becomes Mara.

Or should that order have been reversed?

Ruth goes out and seeks favour.

Boaz offers favour.

Boaz redeems Ruth

Thus also Mara.

Mara is restored, despite the humiliation of her return.

Mara becomes Naomi.

Humiliated, helpless, bitter, unable to redeem oneself but rescued by another. A story repeated offtimes through history.

Credit update: Thoughts inspired by my discussion with my wifey this morning.

Competitiveness and Scripture

For a little while now I've been thinking about a question: What does the Bible say about competitive sport?

A very difficult topic, because it doesn't say anything directly on the topic.

Thanks to Dave, I've recently read an essay on the topic which was quite helpful. It essentially saw sport as a neutral activity, but one in which it is very easy for sin to be masked as acceptable.

I'll be posting more on this as I work through it, but my current thought is about Sport as a revealer. I don't think that sport necessarily produces greater ungodliness, but is instead a revealer of ungodliness that is already there. In short, it reveals the person underneath.

This, however, can also be a beautiful thing when great sportsmanship and honourable play are demonstrated, or pursuit of excellence without cheating despite great pressure to do so. The high-emotion arena of sport is "a true revealer of character" as the great Stan Coombs once said.

What do you think about competitive sport, is it a good part of our created humanity? Or just pride dressed up in respectability?

Clarification

In case anyone was wondering whether my post (Those People) about people who make critiques of other people all the time was about them, it wasn't. As the ending hopefully hints at, it was as much about my desire to do the very same thing and the irony of that.

Apologies if anyone out there in blogland is fretting over having offended their most admired and respected blogger. *coughchoke*

To a tea

This afternoon:

My wife and I start discussing what's going to be on for dinner tonight. She starts explaining to me that her sisters are coming over and that they'll be having High Tea. Now I start wondering what High Tea truly is, by definition, having experienced not only the traditional cucumber sandwiches but also some pretty crazy treats that bear little resemblance to said staple.

Melissa informs me that it's essentially lots of different little things eaten together as a meal. I suggest that this is just a posh English version of Yum Cha.

I then suggest that perhaps the dodgy finger-foods served at certain larger functions (Ie, mini spring rolls, curry puffs, meatballs, etc) ought thus to be labelled 'Low Tea'.

Low Tea. I like it.

Those people

I find it silly that so many times I see comments that snipe negatively about something or other about the culture of a particular church or denomination. I don't mean jokes about Presbyterians never changing anything, I mean things like “all those Xs worship their favourite preachers instead of Jesus” in a case when it's really not a big deal.

It makes me want to write a big post attacking people who snipe at ...

…

Oh.

>:-|