NASA - Deep Impact

A real life "Deep Impact" mission to a commet can be found here: NASA - Deep Impact. Unlike the Hollywood movie by the same name, where Robert Duvall pilots a modified space shuttle full of astronauts to a commet on a collision course with earth, the "Deep Impact" mission will make contact with the comet on the Fourth of July, and will be made up of unmanned space craft.

Also unlike the movie, which attempted to blow-up a comet using nuclear warheads, the NASA Deep Impact space craft will simply collide with the commet at a speed of approx. 6 miles per second. Though there are no explosive charges on the space craft, NASA believe it might make a crater as large as a sports stadium.

Very interesting....

Merton on happiness

Thomas Merton on happiness, from the book No Man Is An Island:

Each one of us has some kind of vocation. We are all called by God to share in His life and in His Kingdom. Each one of us is called to a special place in the Kingdom. If we find that place we will be happy. If we do not find it, we can never be completely happy. For each one of us, there is only one thing necessary: to fulfill our own destiny, according to God's will, to be what God wants us to be.

Merton, Thomas. No Man Is An Island. San Diego: Harcourt, 1955.

Merton: "no man can serve two masters"

This meditation on love is from the Thomas Merton book No Man Is An Island:

It would be a sin to place any limit upon our hope in God. We must love Him without measure. All sin is rooted in the failure of love. All sin is a withdrawal of love from God, in order to love something else. Sin sets boundaries to our hope, and locks our love in prsion. If we place our last end in something limited, we have withdrawn our hearts entirely from the service of the living God. If we continue to love Him as our end, but place our hope in something else together with Him, our love and our hope are not what they should be, for no man can serve two masters.

Merton, Thomas. No Man Is An Island. San Diego: Harcourt, 1955.

Two Masters

Lately I've been meditating on the parables in Luke 16. Here's the one about the shrewd manager:

“There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions. And he called him and said to him, ‘What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be manager.’

And the manager said to himself, ‘What shall I do, since my master is taking the management away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that when I am removed from management, people may receive me into their houses.’

So, summoning his master’s debtors one by one, he said to the first, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of oil.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.’ Then he said to another, ‘And how much do you owe?’ He said, ‘A hundred measures of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Take your bill, and write eighty.’

The master commended the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

“One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

--Luke 16:1-13 ESV

Plato on Morality

Plato on Morality, as summarized by Tom Griffith:

For Plato, the answer to the question 'How should we live?' was given by his friend and mentor Socrates, who, for all his protestations that he did not know anything, had an unshakable conviction that there were moral truths and moral realities. Of these truths, two were of overriding importance. The first, which found it's way into Christianity 400 years later, and has been immensely influential ever since, was that we are never justified in harming anyone (the prevailing view being that we should help our friends and harm our enemies). The second was that goodness and knowledge are the same thing, that people do wrong simply because they fail to understand what is good and what is bad. Few people these days would accept this as a moral truth, perhaps, but for Socrates and Plato it was fundamental.

Griffith, Tom. Introduction. Plato: Selections from Protagoras, Republic, Phaedrus, Gorgias. By Plato. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2004. 9.

Bob Jones has a dream...

Bob Jones (no relation to the university by the same name) is a true prophet of God, who has some unique and powerful insights into Christianity. The following is a prophetic word he had recently told to Paul Keith Davis entitled "I Have a Dream"

I Have A Dream

In one of his prophetic encounters, Bob was told that the enemy is vigorously working to steal the 'dreams' of God's people. Primarily, the dreams consist of hopes and aspirations birthed in the spirit of Christians that motivate them in prayer and set them on their prophetic journey.

In the experience, the Lord expressed that it was acceptable for His people to contemplate great and lofty things that He is capable of doing through them. That is the admonition to us in Ephesians 3:20-21---

Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

If our dreams become exaggerated beyond the parameters of His promise, then He will make adjustments in us that keep it from becoming vain imaginations. With the vision that is being imparted to saints, there is a corresponding faith that is birthed to see it become reality. Our adversary is attempting to bring opposition to those dreams and visions with the anticipated result of birthing hopelessness and depression in its place.

Psalms 126 was given as an outline for this admonition. Those who dream in the greatness and hopeful expectation of God's restoration are filled with joy. Correspondingly, without vision, people perish in discouragement and confusion and are led into captivity.

We cannot give up the dream and aspiration of being used mightily by the Holy Spirit in the blueprint of Heaven presently being unfolded. We must also continue to dream for our children to be handed a rich spiritual inheritance."