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in case you were wondering.

anybody know...

why our gasoline prices are so cheap??

i mean ... you know ...
compared with the rest of the world.

i believe austria and germany are usually $6 a gallon.
...anyone know any other prices around the world?


and, really ... why are our gas prices so cheap??

sarah mclachlan 'world on fire' video

my brother told me to look at this video tonight. (requires itunes)

its the best thing i've seen in quite a while.

sigh...

(why does so much grace come from outside the church and so little from within it?)

p.s. i thought the psalm 118:5-12 scrawl curiously echo'd the lyrics.

let freedom ring?

Matthew 7:3-5

King James Version (KJV) Public Domain

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.

the daily show meets dilbert

why should the fire die?

i pre-ordered nickel creeks third disk which was just released aug 9th. i love it. its as refreshing a departure as their second disk was to their first. i missed not seeing bluegrass uber-goddess alison krauss in the liner notes - but applaud NCs bravery in stepping out (yet again). the gorgeous accoustic sound, impecable but sensitive playing, arresting songwritting, meter changes, chromatic voicings, suspensions and disonances are all there -- i hope i dont ruin the plot by saying they have added the occasional heavy effects / ambiences ... as well as impeccably voiced snaredrum-like backbeats -- whodathunk they could make that work!? watch the video. real & honest music. intense and exquisite.

was saul such a bad guy?

i heard a message this last sunday at a friends church and got a bit of a review/rundown of the saul -> paul story. i decided i was hearing a very christian-centric, post-we-know-how-this-story-turns-out perspective -- and imagined that the story from saul's perspective was quite different. since i couldn't raise my hand there (something about decorum) -- i'll see if i can capture the gist of it here:

saul is a jewish scholar, a farisee of farisee's (the weren’t that hip) -- which makes him a bit of an over-achiever don't ya think? -- basically, if you want to be good and you think you are -- saul is gooder(er) and more of it. he may have a bit of a penchant for a works-based kind of holiness -- on this, i think we agree.

when saul comes across a new religious sect based on blasphemies -- he starts confronting, harassing, imprisoning, torturing and even killing off these followers of this 'false christ'. i don't think saul was just persecuting for something to do, like ‘cause he was bored -- i think he was trying to STOP this new heretical offshoot that was tricking folk into a new slipperier kind of polytheism.

what strikes me the most here – i don't believe saul is suddenly inconsistent with himself. or with his OT learnin'. his DNA is someone who follows the letter of the law and more. so here’s my question: was saul a bad man, like eviiil, i mean in his heart? or was he pursuing holiness as revealed by God up to that point? and pursuing holiness with the same kind of over achieving zeal we celebrate just a few verses later?