Here and Now

...at least at the Beatty house :) (you probably have to click on the picture to see the whole thing).  From Sunday's Baby Blues:

No, not the movie - or the metaphor (yea Ray Bradbury) for Chaos Theory.  But, well, a little like both, actually.  Or not... A few weeks ago Elie brought home a butterfly.  At school they found caterpillars and put them in containers with plants...and...stuff.  Um, I'm no bug guy, so you'll have to take my word for it - or ask Elie.  Anyway, when Elie's butterfly came out of the chrysalis, it only had three wings.  She couldn't release it to fly away - since it couldn't fly - so she "got to bring it home."  She fed it mashed up watermelon and tried to nurture it but, well, you know how this story will end.  It died a couple days later.  Elie did okay with that.  But we couldn't just throw it away.  We had to bury it.  Thankfully, she didn't want a full funeral - but she put up a cross made of sticks where her first dead pet is buried. I was mowing the other day and I almost mowed it - but I didn't.  I carefully went around it.  Why?  Well,

You know, I saw this picture at  Church Marketing Sucks  and I thought WT...ahem.  I mean, "What?"  :) Anyway, yes, a college campus outreach ministry used these banners - fully aware of the meaning - to advertise their ministry.  How far is too far?

Went to Atlanta last week for the Catalyst conference.  Tons of great stuff (of course) and a couple new worship songs (Gungor's new stuff is great).  One of my favorite quotes from the week came from Seth Godin. "Cupcake failure is not fatal." His point (in part) - a lot of what we are afraid to try to do in ministry, in work, in whatever, is the equivalent of cupcake making.  What happens if you fail at making a batch of cupcakes?  You throw them away, right?  No.  You have wasted a bunch of time, right?  No.  You are not a cupcake maker, right?  No.  You have gained valuable insight into what it does NOT take to make cupcakes.  But you won't die. If you want to succeed at ANYTHING, you have to be willing to fail first.  Take risks.  You will fail at times.  But if you succeed...you may have created a whole new way of making cupcakes.  Who was the first person to put applesauce in their cake recipe?  Have you heard about making a cake with Diet Coke in it?  I

So I've given up "regular" features - in that I can't keep up with scheduled stuff every week - but I'll still drop the post title when appropriate. Anyway, today it's Apothegm (I was SURE that was a typo when I first read it - who puts g and m together in a word?) ap·o·thegm      [ ap - uh -them ]     Show IPA –noun a   short,   pithy,   instructive   saying;   a   terse   remark   or   aphorism. Also,   apophthegm. Origin:   1545–55;     earlier   apothegma    <  Gk   apóphthegma,     equiv.   to apophtheg-     (var.   s.   of   apophthéngesthai     to   speak   out;   apo-   apo-  +  phthéngesthai     to   speak)  +  -ma     n.   suffix —Related   forms ap·o·theg·mat·ic     [ ap- uh -theg- mat -ik ]     Show IPA ,  ap·o·theg·mat·i·cal,   adjective ap·o·theg·mat·i·cal·ly,   adverb —Can   be   confused:     adage ,  aphorism ,  apothegm,   axiom ,  maxim , proverb . Dictionary.com   Unabridged   Based   on   the   Random   House   Dictionary,  ©  Ra