New blogging home

Ladies and Gentlemen, If you are looking for a "Few Minutes with Andy', I have moved to a new web home: Global Andy ! Not only is my blog there but info on our minsitry and other little fun things.

So after almost 1000 blog posts on 5 different blogger blogs I wrote for and 2 more I contributed to, I am now under Wordpress. Quite frankly it took me a while to master the intial set-up but it allows me to do more than just blog.

But I will still blog sharing opservations of life, family and your basic random stuff. I promise to write from time to time about the travails of my house to keep the Burning Hearts Revolution and his lovely wife laughing at my expense. And all the posts you may have loved/hated/missed on this site and the achived devotions on STINT Leaders have been imported to the new site. (Even the one the Burning Hearts wife gently rebuked me on.) Now you can find it here!

If you like visiting my blog, there are a number of ways you could choose, I prefer Google Reader myself as you can subscribe to all your favorite sites and its then its like have a newspaper that you can visit. So simply add globalandy.com .

Free Audio Download - Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places

One of the best books I have read in the last few years is being offered free on Christianbooknotes.com: Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places by Eugene Peterson: Free Audio Download

12 mp3 files that take forever to download. But hey they are free!

20 Years Ago

BTW, the NY Times has a new photo of a different angle of the "Tank Man".

Denial, Despair and Hope

I am reading No Place Left to Bury the Dead.   It's subtitle is "Denial, Despair and Hope in the African AIDS Pandemic".   So far I have only read the denial and despair parts.  

I have to say its frustrating to read of the despair.  Don't get me wrong.  It's a book everyone should read.  Heaven forbid that we continue to turn our back on our neighbors in Africa because its too painful to engage in their sorrows.

The first third of the book (where I am now) is centered around the life of one woman in Lesotho who is HIV+ and the realities of this epidemic on this tiny country that is encompassed by South Africa.  It's frustrating though to read things like how the very people who most could use proper medical care and antiviral drugs to keep them alive can't afford them.   Or knowing a widow will lose her home because her son has died of AIDs.

I am really looking forward to the 'hope' part of this book.

This morning, in another book,  I read: 

"You evildoers frustrate the plans of the poor,  but the LORD is their refuge."   

And I went back and read Psalm 10:  

"Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God. Do not forget the helpless....  you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand.  The victim commits himself to you;  you are the helper of the fatherless.   You hear, O LORD, the desire of the afflicted;  you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed,  in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more."

That's hope.

Kung Fu Found Dead

David Carradine was found dead in Bangkok. Carradine was made famous by his 1970's role as Kwai Chang Caine, in the TV Series Kung Fu. 

In other shocking news it was found that Carradine was not Asian after all.

Tell it Slant - Book Review

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant---
Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind---  Emily Dickinson

Eugene H Peterson his 'conversations' of Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eat this Book and The Jesus Way with Tell it Slant: a Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers.  

Peterson has become one of my favorite authors.  His way of writing and command of language takes theology into a 'can't-put-it-down' style.   His insight into the stories and prayers of Jesus bring new understanding to the reader.  Peterson draws you in and allows you to experience Christ in a whole new way.

In first half of Tell it Slant, Peterson focuses on the parables of Jesus recorded in Luke, parables told on the travel narrative as Jesus heads to Jerusalem.  These parables 'dazzle gradually' and help us understand the Kingdom of God but also how Jesus used language in between life and ministry.

In the second half of his book, Peterson takes us to the language of Jesus through His prayers.  he focuses on six prayers combining the words on the cross as one ultimate prayer.  Peterson is passionate that we don't need seminars on 'how to pray', we simply need to follow Christ's lead for prayer is at the very heart of our existence.

I'd rate this book up there with Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.  Once you get into the rhythm of Eugene Peterson's writing you are compelled to read on and you better off for it as well.  5 Stars.