Original post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allanbevere/ROss/~3/KgJhYyLUV-I/the-caffeine-connection.html

HT: Scot McKnight

Original post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allanbevere/ROss/~3/fDjz2eQvjQQ/truth-is-stranger-than-fiction-would.html

McDonald's Employee Finds Stolen Car At Restaurant's Drive-Thru

KENNEWICK, Wash. (CBS Seattle) — A McDonald's employee found her own stolen car in the fast food restaurant's drive-thru.

Kennewick authorities tell KEPR-TV that 22-year-old Katherine York was driving Virginia Maiden's stolen Toyota SUV while going through the McDonald's drive-thru Tuesday.

Maiden told police that her vehicle was stolen from her apartment complex Tuesday morning.

After Maiden spotted her car, she called Kennewick police who responded to the scene as York was pulling out of the drive-thru. York and a male passenger were detained, but the unidentified man was later released.

Police found stolen clothes from Sears and JC Penney in the vehicle.

York was charged with possession of a stolen vehicle as the investigation into the shoplifting continues. She was booked into the Benton County Jail.

Original post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allanbevere/ROss/~3/yA6-BFibtng/what-happened-between-john-wesley-and.html

Ted Campbell, Methodist History:
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During the period of the Seven Years War (1756-1763), John Wesley's two most intimate relationships fell apart. His relationship to his brother Charles had been on rocky ground since 1748 when Charles intervened to prohibit John's marriage to Grace Murray. John Wesley's 1751 marriage to Mary Vazeile "née Goldhawk" is widely recognized to have ended badly within a few years, but John's own culpability in the dissolution of this relationship has been scarcely acknowledged. The fact that both of these intimate disconnections occurred within a few years' time, and during the period of the Seven Years War, also needs to be recognized.

 

The dissolution of John Wesley's intimate relationships during the Seven Years War followed some earlier strains in his relationship with Charles....

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The entire article can be read here.

 

HT: The United Methodist Reporter

Original post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allanbevere/ROss/~3/0p6rzqm18wM/the-burial-of-terrorist_15.html

Tamarlan Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon bomber who was killed in a shootout with police, was buried secretly a few days after his death. Outside the funeral home where his body was kept, protesters stood outside across the street shouting, "feed him to the sharks!" A plot which was donated in the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in Doswell, Virginia has upset some families who have relatives buried there.

Martha Mullen, a United Methodist helped arrange for the burial and did so based on her Christian convictions. "Jesus tells us to love our enemies, not hate them after they're dead," said Martha Mullen, in a phone interview. "That's why I kind of got this ball rolling."



I understand the anger people have over the great atrocity committed in Boston on that fateful day and I am well aware of the human desire to strike back in every way possible toward those who behave in almost unspeakable ways. But I think the difference between a civilized world and one that isn't is that those who are truly civilized refuse to act in ways that the uncivilized, in this case, terrorists do. It is right to seek justice, but vengeance must be reserved for God. It is good to have a righteous anger, but we must not allow that anger to seethe over into a blind rage that brings more calamity on others and reduces us to the kind of distorted view of morality that justifies feeling pleasure when inflicting misery on others-- even the guilty. Justice does not mean getting even. And in being willing to bury a terrorist who has acted so unjustly, and who did what he did to get revenge acting for his own divine cause, we are not justifying or minimizing his heinous actions. We are simply doing what decency requires.

But decency alone is not sufficient. I am a Christian, and I want to do much more than act decently. I want my life to reflect the image of Jesus Christ in this world. And we must remember that through the decency of Joseph of Arimathea, Jesus was buried when the normal fate of the crucified dead was carrion for birds and wild dogs. And Luke reminds us that in Jesus' death, he was counted among the wicked (Luke 22:37). Martha Mullen says she approached her pastor and informed her as to what she was doing and her pastor was supportive. If I were Martha's pastor, I would have been supportive as well because I think Jesus would have approved of her actions.

And I have much trouble believing that Jesus would feed anyone to the sharks.

Original post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allanbevere/ROss/~3/XUwsATf6UFw/the-extraordinary-work-of-spirit.html

Acts 2:1-21

They were just ordinary individuals from ordinary parts of the Roman empire-- "Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs" (2:9-10).They were there for Pentecost, the Feast of the First-Fruits. Pentecost was celebrated every year, an important feast, but celebrated as if each year was extraordinary.

But this year, Pentecost would take on a truly extraordinary life of its own.

Jesus told his followers-- wait in Jerusalem and pray-- until the power from on high comes upon you. Some of them must have been skeptical.What power? Will this come through the power of prayer? We've prayed before. So often our prayers have gone unanswered.

Then came the wind and the flame and these ordinary disciples, these Jesus-followers from Galilee overcame their cowardly ways and ran out into the streets like drunken and courageous men shouting about the mighty works of God in Jesus Christ.

Indeed, there were Jews there that day from every nation under heaven hearing the mighty works of God proclaimed. Some charged that they were filled with the new wine of fermented grapes, but those in the know knew they were filled with the new wine of God's Spirit.

Simon Peter, the one who denied Jesus three times the night before Jesus' crucifixion stands up as one who now gets it. "People of Jerusalem, these men are not drunk. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. The bars haven't opened. Nope. The Prophet Joel spoke about this long ago. In the last days I will pour out my Spirit on all people.  Your sons and, yes, your daughters will preach. Your old men, will see visions and your young men will dream dreams."

The extraordinary work of God will now be revealed among his ordinary people.

And all who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

The adventure continues....

Original post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/allanbevere/ROss/~3/BoRBM1SHBdI/coptic-christians-in-egypt-they-are.html

by James Cowan at The Huffington Post:
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It is important, sometimes, to distance oneself from the internecine strife going on in Egypt today, and remember the country's rich heritage as a seed ground for all that we in the West consider ours. Egypt is behind all our ways of thinking, even if we are not aware of it.

We forget that men such as Pythagoras, Plato, Solon and Thales learnt their trade at the feet of the priest at On, near present day Cairo. These men journeyed to Egypt, and spent many years there, because it was considered an important locus for philosophic inquiry. When we add the Alexandrian philosophers of a more recent era into this heady mix, men such as Plotinus and Amonius Saccas, it is clear that Egypt became a veritable center of culture, intellect and discourse for generations of men.


The Coptic Church matters because it is the West's last link with an earlier form of Christianity, and with a tradition of eremitical life that has all but disappeared from the modern world. It matters also because it reminds us of what Egypt means to us as a repository of all that the West holds dear in terms of thought, culture and the civilizing process itself. The Copts are descendents of the original Egyptians, and share their grave and stable approach to governance and belief. Furthermore, they continue to act as a restraining influence upon the passionate and often disruptive forces that are currently abroad in the streets of Cairo today.

That they are an oppressed minority in their own land is beyond question. It has always been so. Islamic fundamentalists would be happy to "cleanse" Egypt of their presence, if that were possible. But thankfully, wiser heads among the ulema and the government know how important the Copts are to the age-old governance of Egypt. They know that the introduction of a grand caliphate in Egypt is also impossible. Islam, after all, is just one of the many faiths of this polyglot nation, and needs to honor those who have gone before. The Copts, without doubt, represent its memory.

The Copts matter because they are a part of our own history too. They gave us the journey of the Holy Family aware from oppression in the Holy Land, something that we need to respect and admire.
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The entire post can be read here.