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Miss Gracie | new adventures on an old boat | Page 2
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New adventures on an old boat. On June 30, 2014 by Nutsy Fagan. This is a photo of our new shutters comin’ soon! Don’t you just love them? Going to paint the shutters and the front door in Lake Placid (pale blue). Beachy heaven! On June 27, 2014 by Nutsy Fagan. The real Miss Gracie graduated from middle school yesterday! Hard to believe she is off to High School. Congratulations Grace! Barbie’s Dream House Photo Bomb! On April 29, 2014 by Nutsy Fagan. We’ll be takin’ a bath! Sun is shining and folks are ...
blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com
BlackPhi's Ramblings: September 2014
http://blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com/2014_09_01_archive.html
Sunday, 28 September 2014. What Are Sermons For? Okay, as an occasional preacher I might be expected to know this. But it's not really a question 'ministers' and preachers commonly ask. There is. A stock answer - preaching and teaching - but that doesn't stand up well to closer inspection. I am currently leading a review of our Parish Communion service, and how it can be more meaningful to occasional visitors, so I am. Preaching to the converted' seems a meaningless exercise. Meaningless, it can have a p...
blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com
BlackPhi's Ramblings: January 2015
http://blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com/2015_01_01_archive.html
Sunday, 18 January 2015. How Fast Were The Magi? So, how old was Jesus when the wise men came? The Bible story, told in Matthew's Gospel. Doesn't directly say, but it does tell us that Herod checked when the wise men first saw the star then sent his soldiers to kill all the children in the area under the age of two. So he certainly thought Jesus was not a babe in arms but no more than two years old. So 'about one' is a pretty fair estimate. What about the distance the magi had to travel? Bit, even in sol...
blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com
BlackPhi's Ramblings: A Quiet Life?
http://blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-quiet-life.html
Tuesday, 11 August 2015. Several times over the years I have asked people (churchgoers and non-churchgoers) what they thought church services are about, who they are for, and how they can be made better. A couple of recent answers (from churchgoers) got me thinking:. Our Sunday service should be for everyone in the local community; but really it's for people like us.". We realise we have to change, but some of us think we are already changing, and maybe changing too quickly.". So I believe that on the on...
blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com
BlackPhi's Ramblings: One God Indivisible
http://blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com/2015/08/one-god-indivisible.html
Saturday, 1 August 2015. As the early church became separated from its Jewish roots, it became more and more important to pin down just what the New Testament writers meant by some of the things they had written about Jesus. Paul and John were both religious Jews, and therefore strongly monotheistic. So what did they mean by phrases like:. From Paul's letter to the Colossian church; and. From the opening of John's Gospel? In my view, at the heart of the issue is the reality that God is essentially unknow...
blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com
BlackPhi's Ramblings: Mark: Why?
http://blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com/2015/07/mark-why.html
Saturday, 25 July 2015. I've been working quite intensively with Mark's Gospel over several months now, in detail and - especially - as a whole, and I'm left with the feeling that I never really knew it before. It is so much less a simple history or biography and so much more an open-ended account filled with pace and emotion, confusion, uncertainty and pain. So I wonder, why did Mark write it? But Mark's Gospel is about more than that. From Paul's early letters it is clear that many in the early churche...
blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com
BlackPhi's Ramblings: March 2015
http://blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com/2015_03_01_archive.html
Sunday, 29 March 2015. One new thing which has struck me about Lent this year is that it is a time to seek a new vision, a direction to go for the future. Jesus, having been affirmed by God - "You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased". This blog has changed a lot over the years. It seems to me that it has recently been tending toward geekiness, and that this is the trend to continue. What have you discovered over this Lenten period? About yourself or about this world? Are you an enthusiast?
blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com
BlackPhi's Ramblings: One God In Community
http://blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com/2015/08/one-god-in-community.html
Wednesday, 5 August 2015. One God In Community. The Christian picture of a Trinitarian God does have some important consequences. A key implication is that the Trinity in some way reflects an important property of God's nature: that he is in an essential way relational; that community is somehow central to the creator of the universe. I would argue that this is how you can tell the true Church, Jesus' real followers: are they in the business of restoring relationships or of harming them? Not that even th...
blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com
BlackPhi's Ramblings: Sinners?
http://blackphi-ramblings.blogspot.com/2015/07/sinners.html
Monday, 20 July 2015. Tim Farron, the new Lib-Dem leader seems to be getting a lot of stick for being an evangelical Christian. In particular, he has been quizzed on his views on homosexuality and been seen as evasive because when asked. If homosexual sex is a sin he would only answer that "my firm belief is that we are all sinners.". It doesn't help that he has apparently abstained on an earlier vote affecting gay marriage. What got me thinking, though, was the link between "we are all sinners". Jesus w...
