La rana que quería ser una rana auténtica

escrito por Augusto Monterroso. (página web)


Había una vez una rana que quería ser una Rana auténtica, y todos los días se esforzaba en ello.
Al principio se compró un espejo en el que se miraba largamente buscando su ansiada autenticidad. Unas veces parecía encontrarla y otras no, según el humor de ese día o de la hora, hasta que se cansó de esto y guardó el espejo en un baúl.

Por fin pensó que la única forma de conocer su propio valor estaba en la opinión de la gente, y comenzó a peinarse y a vestirse y a desvestirse (cuando no le quedaba otro recurso) para saber si los demás la aprobaban y reconocían que era una Rana auténtica.

Un día observó que lo que más admiraban de ella era su cuerpo, especialmente sus piernas, de manera que se dedicó a hacer sentadillas y a saltar para tener unas ancas cada vez mejores, y sentía que todos la aplaudían.

Y así seguía haciendo esfuerzos hasta que, dispuesta a cualquier cosa para lograr que la consideraran una Rana auténtica, se dejaba arrancar las ancas, y los otros se las comían, y ella todavía alcanzaba a oír con amargura cuando decían que qué buena rana, que parecía pollo.

quote by CS Lewis

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We read so that we might know we are not alone.
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anti-cafeina

Para los que sepan de la ley anti-tobaco aquí en España... Este video resultará interesante y quizás un poco gracioso.

prayer

I feel like I don't know what you are up to. So often insecure, unstable and a little bit alone.
I cannot deny how you have changed me, shaped me, formed me and loved me, though I always seem to have questions running through my mind. I wonder who I am. And who I will be. I know you don't stop working.

I have said it before and I will say it again- that I am yours, before I am my own. You have the right to my innermost and my outermost. To withhold is to rob you on the one thing you ask.

My prayer is that my lack of seeing, of understanding, of capacity will not affect you in me. That you take me despite my constant double mindedness and weakness. Make me, shake me, I am yours.
And when I cry out in weakness, in lack of understanding- remember my words spoken into eternity- perhaps in ignorance but from within. And complete your work in me.

Only remember that I am small and frail and it will be only by your grace that I will be able to withstand- you in me.

change.

I am changing the name of my blog. So if you see various titles floating around in the air know that I am in the process of processing a good title.

blue fence

Must comment on this blog that I found through my friend Katrina's blog (which by the way is excellent, see Standing on the Edge). This blog is called Blue Fence and well, this girl (Shannon) explains it better than I could. So see for yourself...


click here: BLUE FENCE

Wishful Thinking... Buechner

Was reading through this book again by Buechner and came across this about grace. For what it's worth...




GRACE:

...After centuries of handling and mishandling, most religious words become so shopworn nobody's much interested anymore. Not so with grace, for some reason. Mysteriously, even derivatives like gracious and graceful still have some of the bloom left.
...Grace is something you can never get but can only be given. There's no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth.
...A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace. Have you ever tried to love somebody?
...A crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do. There's nothing you have to do.
...The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn't have been complete without you. Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. I am with you. Nothing can ever separate us. It's for you I created the universe. I love you.
...There's only one catch. Like any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you'll reach out and take it.
...Maybe being able to reach out and take it is a gift too.

Pt. III

Been a while since I posted from The Shaping of Things to Come. Here is a bit of a summary of recent reading:


Expanding on the INCARNATIONAL approach.

2 Cor 5:19 ...God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself...
Those who seek God will now find him in Jesus the man.

Couple of thoughts now on evangelism (p 44): Jesus commented to his disciples that he would make them fishers of men. Not only was he using words and concepts that the disciples understood but he was hinting at the missional community which was to come.
Fishing rods versus nets. We think of it as going out, casting out our line and with the right bait, the right words, the right church program, the right lingo, the right moment, someone will bite the hook. Its a one on one affair. "If everyone does their bit and gets a couple of friends saved and then into the church, we will be fulfilling Jesus' mandate."
In turn, Jesus wasn't referring to poles and bait but rather nets. They fished with nets, they went out, dragged their net about and then went back to shore, taking with them whatever had been caught in the net. The real key then was not studying the currents, tides and all the other technical details (though it is not unhelpful) but the strength of the nets! If the nets were strong and clean, their would be a catch. Note, they spent more time mending and cleaning their nets than actually out on the water.
Frost sees this image relating to us today in that "instead of adopting a stance that requires a Christian to leave a sacred zone to go and fish for an individual to return with him to that zone (church building), it releases the church to see its 'fishing' as a more relational exercise. If the disciples spent so much time on their nets to ensure a catch, what might those nets be for us today? We propose that the web of relationships, friendships, and acquaintances that Christians normally have makes up the net into which not-yet Christians will swim. This means that the missional-incarnational church will spend more time on building friendships than it will on developing religious programs."

Following that up he quotes:
"But no thought is given to establish what church members are already doing in their neighborhood and places of work. No attempt is made, for example, to identify the medical practitioner who has changed the approach to patients by providing counseling and practical support rather than just curative care. No attempt is made to identify the local (public official) in the congregation who is tackling certain important quality of life and social issues in the community. No attempt is made to support the lady who is conducting an informal neighborhood bible study group. No attempt is made to support prayerfully the teacher who has just started work in an inner-city school with many pupils from broken families. And no attempt is made to see ones family's care for their disabled child as a ministry worthy of the church's support and prayers."
More than that, we don't see businessmen, students, youth workers, lecturers, plumbers, electricians, and homemakers as having missional roles in their worlds... We don't see the strong creation of friendships that parents make through the local school as being anything to do with mission (unless they're inviting them to church). We can't see the regular gathering of *whatever group* as part of the net that catches people into the kingdom of God.



*all thoughts taken from The Shaping of Things to Come*

october in Badajoz

mainly posting this post because i like the how the title follows my previous posting. surely that should be reason enough for a post. sometimes one thinks of a thrown-in title for something profound they have written. and other times the content might just be throw-in for a profound title.

Cáceres in September

I spent a month in Cáceres, a beautiful city in the north of Extremadura. The month of September to further define it. I was doing a months intensive Spanish course. I realized a couple of things during that month. One was that I enjoy studying things that I enjoy. Like Spanish. The other is that I kinda dig living alone. I spent two months this summer living alone (for the first time really as I've always lived with a family ((mine or a borrowed one)) or friends). There are advantages to each one, but this past month I appreciated what it is to live alone.

I am doing a Spanish exam in November so this course was preparing me if you will. Currently I am going through a prep book I bought for this exam. Needless to say if I didn't like Spanish this would be as fun as watching grass grow, but like I mentioned before, studying something I enjoy isn't all that bad. So the month was good, I met some great people from all over the world: Palestine, Leictenstein/Pakistan, Granada, Cáceres, England, Argentina, etc, ate some great food, ie torta del casar (good strong cheese if its your thing), lentils from Palestine, secreto iberico, as well as some other stuff whose names I can't remember!

Anyways, I am back in Badajoz now and the course is finished (as is the lack of internet access which I very much learned to appreciate). Teaching has kicked off and is now in high gear. An income is usually a good thing. Not to much on the cooker for the next month or so, just studying for the DELE exam and teaching the english.

FYI, in the fotos are my friends Jared and Mau with the old lady when they came to visit me in Cáceres. Good times in a nice city. Recommend it on your tour of Spain.

contrast

if the below post is maybe what church should be about, than the above picture is maybe what church shouldn't be.

nicked from the website of small boat big sea.