In my own words

I hate this kind of house-keeping and hope you'll bear with me.

Over the past five years I've occasionally quoted or referenced materials here from secondary sources, including newspaper and magazine articles, encyclopedias, TV shows, novels, poems, Scripture and even other peoples' blogs.

In each case I was careful to follow the principle of Fair Use as closely as possible, in addition to attributing full credit to original sources and authors.

From my un-affiliated, non-competitive, un-ordained and un-paid perspective as an amateur blogger, there's precious little difference between including a link pointing readers to an outside source and quoting the exact same material verbatim while identifying the original source, simply as a convenience for the reader. Nonetheless I accept responsibility for any outrage or misunderstanding.

To avoid any potential misunderstandings, accusations, suspicions or hurt feelings in the future, I removed all links to external blogs from the "Convenient Links" on the right hand side of this page. Hopefully that'll put an end to the question.

Two more things.

In no case did I ever quote, copy, plagiarize, appropriate, borrow, incorporate, apply or re-word someone else's work and present it to others as my own. Posts bearing my name reflect my thoughts expressed in my words. Each one of The Blue Book's 4565 posts is still available in the online archives if anyone wants to check.

Finally, please feel free to quote, borrow, mention or copy anything I've written here in the service of God's kingdom. I don't earn a penny from The Blue Book and I'm not in competition with anybody ... regardless of their denomination, position, title or affiliation. No one. I hope you won't even think of The Blue Book as belonging to me.

My ambition is that The Blue Book will somehow share the Gospel and reach people for Christ no matter where they are in the world. Period. Whether or not I receive financial reward, popular acclaim or public credit for my words simply doesn't matter ... and is the least thing I have time to worry about.

How I became a Catholic

Mount Calvary Episcopal Church will vote in October on full-communion with the Catholic Church

• By Randy Sly
• 9/30/2010

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - In a letter to parishioners, the Reverend Jason Cantania, rector of Mount Calvary Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland, announced that the vestry of the parish had voted unanimously in favor of two resolutions. First, they have voted to leave The Episcopal Church (TEC) where they are a part of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, and, second, to become an Anglican Use parish in the Catholic Church through the new initiative from Rome - the Anglicorum Coetibus.

Under the terms of this apostolic constitution, the Church has provided opportunities for "personal ordinariates for Anglicans entering full communion with the Catholic Church."

• 
  
• - source
• ----- ---

It strikes me as odd that voting can change an entire congregation's affiliation. I mean, how can an entire church wake up one morning belonging to one faith, and then fall asleep the same night identifying themselves as something else? Is such a wholesale realignment possible, or does the identification a church decides for itself even matter?

And what happens to the members who voted not to change? Are they still Episcopalians, or would the parish's vote change them into Catholics?

At least in this case, the congregation gets the chance to vote on the vestry's decision.

PS. Vestry is another word for Committee.

Wal-Mart where?

Wal-Mart expands into Africa with $4.2bn deal

Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer, is expanding into Africa for the first time after offering to buy one of South Africa's largest chains in a multi-billion dollar deal.

By Richard Blackden
Published: 9:40PM BST 27 Sep 2010

Andy Bond, who helps run Wal-Mart's international business, said South Africa 'possesses attractive market dynamics' Photo: Clara Molden

The US retailer, which owns the Asda chain in the UK, plans to buy MassMart, which sells general merchandise, electronic goods and food at its 290 stores, for $4.2bn (£2.6bn). The deal also gives it a toehold in Nigeria, Ghana and Botswana.

"Africa fits very nicely into a strategy of building an international business skewed to emerging markets," said Bryan Roberts, an analyst at Planet Retail.

- source and full story here

Choices vs Decisions ... vs Bull

Quotes from outside

Success is not built on success. It's built on failure. It's built on frustration. Sometimes it's built on catastrophe. - Sumner Redstone

Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment. - Dale Carnegie

All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is to act as if it were impossible to fail. - Dorothea Brande

إِنَّ اللهَ مَحَبَّةٌ

God is love.

The "I didn't mean to, it was an accident!" excuse

My sleeping schedule's off-track.

I blame insomnia, but the reason doesn't matter. The point is that after staying up until almost 7AM earlier in the week, since then I've been getting to bed later and later each successive night. Which helps explain why I was up and awake, fidgeting, and badly craving a Diet Coke at 1:10 AM tonight.

My tiny 12-volt fridge is empty, but then there's a drink machine in the middle of the marina, outside the Rec Room and office. So I counted the change in my pocket, grabbed a rain coat and headed down the dock.

And I tried not to remember or think too much about the clock.

--

Rain had been falling off and on for most of the night, so at that hour of the night the Promenade along the waterfront was completely deserted. I saw a few lights left on in the windows of condos adjoining the marina but I didn't see a single person along the way, not even one.

The quiet and almost complete stillness didn't stop me from thinking what I'd do if the situation suddenly changed ... and things got seriously very serious.

What if the wide shadow behind the next bush suddenly jumped up and turned into a knife-wielding assailant? After all, we've had 158 murders (that's two every three days) in the city already this year.

Sure, I was on Def-Con 4 Situational Code Red High Alert looking out for bad guys all the way to the Coke machine and back ... but if bad guys had showed up, how could I explain why a Diet Coke was soooo important at 1:15 AM that I left my boat (and the security of surveillance cameras and an electronically locked gate) to get one?

"Bad guys showed up at my boat at 1:10 AM, climbed on board with weapons, fought their way inside, handcuffed my wrists behind my back, threw a bag over my head ... and then forced me at gun point to walk to the machine and buy myself two Diet Cokes"?

How about "Walking to the machine in the middle of the night to find a drink machine was an accident?" or "I have a right to do anything I want to at any time of day or night at any place I want"?

Don't all those excuses sound dumb, selfish or both?

Then why do we think those lame excuses work when we use them to rationalize and explain our sins?

The real reason I left my boat at 1AM to go grab a Diet Coke was because I wanted to.

--

I didn't mean to tell a lie

It was an accident that I fell in love with a married man/woman

I didn't wake up thinking about stealing from my employer

My girlfriend got pregnant by accident

He/She's not a believer, but nobody chooses who they fall in love with

Looking back, everything just happened so fast

I never planned on letting my debt getting out of hand

I lost my temper by accident

... It just happened.

But those are all lies.

The truth is that Bad Guys didn't show up and snatch you out of bed this morning, threaten you or your loved ones at gun point and force you to sin.

And neither is it the truth that six months ago you tripped over your shoe laces at work and stumbled into an adulterous affair as a result. Just as it's true that slipping on a banana peel can't explain stealing, lying ... or rationalize a secret porn addiction.

--

Sin is never an accident.

The hollowness of every justification we dream up to squirm our way out of our sins and the consequences of our choices offers a pretty clear indication of how much faith we put in ourselves and how little faith we put in Christ.

Our excuses, no matter how sympathetic or reasonable they sound to our ears, only reveal how convinced we are of our ability to deceive God ... and how deluded we are that we can double-talk The Creator into looking the other way.

At least until the shadow of evil jumps out of the bushes, and life suddenly gets seriously very serious.

The Problem with Popular Wisdom, Snowclones, Bromides, Platitudes and Thought-Terminating Clichés

You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep-seated need to believe.

- Carl Sagan

Hmmm. I wonder if Sagan believed that. Or if he just needed to believe it.

End of an Empire?

You may have seen headlines this week detailing the lurid sexual accusations against a nationally-known "megachurch" pastor.

Church/pastor scandals are hardly unique, and sadly seem to unfold in a similar way. When this story broke I guessed it wouldn't be long before additional claimants surfaced and leveled another round of allegations, just as I'm guessing the publicity generated by this outrage will likely spark similar allegations against other pastors in other churches in other parts of the country.

One more guess tells me that if the claims made against this pastor turn out to be true, his sexual sins will prove to be just the tiny tip of an iceberg concealing large scale financial wrong-doings, fraud, lies, cover-ups and greed ... because the revelation of one man's sins will cast light on his partners and associates who chose to ignore God's commandments and reap their own benefits from sinning right along beside him.

A headline in The New York Times hints that this "Scandal Threatens A Georgia Pastor's Empire." That pastor's empire, built on preaching a "Prosperity Gospel," may well crumble to dust whether or not the allegations turn out to be true.

Christ never taught that salvation depends upon his followers driving Bentleys, wearing Gucci sunglasses or living in million-dollar mini-castles.

Reading Scripture and comparing God's Word to what this man teaches, I wonder if God entrusted Christ's message of Grace, Forgiveness and the Cross to a celebrity pastor earning $3 million dollar annual compensation, who preaches a "Prosperity Gospel" and who arrogantly proclaimed "We're not just a church, we're an international corporation. I deal with the White House. I deal with presidents all over this world. I pastor a multi-million dollar congregation."

That pastor's empire might fail, but no matter what tomorrow's headlines reveal, God's kingdom will always prevail.

Now available on Kindle

Notes from the Blue Book is now available on your Kindle.

Thing is I don't know anybody who owns a Kindle ... and I've never even seen one, except on TV.

If Facebook existed back then ...

Always Dangerous

Tonight I found myself walking alone again for about a mile along the waterfront after 11 PM in the second most dangerous city in the country. That's not the first time; it's just the latest.

I've never tried walking alone on the waterfront late at night dressed in a suit and tie, complete with a starched shirt, shined shoes, minty breath and freshly combed hair.

So here's a couple of things worth passing along:

1. With my grimy jeans, 10 year old sneakers, sweaty baseball cap, 9 months without a haircut hair, torn shirt, grease-stained hands and unshaved face, it's me who 99% of people are worried about ... and I easily picked up on that

2. It doesn't make sense to try running away from the other 1%

Which made me of the Gospel and the Apostle Paul.

---

Why do Believers act as though they've got to protect themselves and switch to a "Prevent Defense" late in the fourth quarter to keep the enemy from scoring? Why do folks who call themselves Christians become indignant when Satan throws pebbles at the Kingdom's fortress walls, and cower in the corner over every little thing in the world they happen to oppose?

Are they afraid of getting their suits and ties dirty?

Why aren't the believers who profess Jesus Christ as their Savior and King the ones who the world considers dangerous?

Why are Christians afraid of an enemy who has absolutely no chance of winning?

PS. When I got back to the marina I found a crated clothes dryer I'd ordered online delivered to the slip beside my boat. Turns out the marina had two muscular twenty-something guys and a propane-powered tug drive it to my boat, so how was I gonna lift that thing over my head and somehow get it on-board?

I could've waited till tomorrow and asked the marina for assistance, or I could've called my friends and asked for creative solutions, or I could've gone online and sent an address book-full of emails requesting leadership to provide me with guidance and direction ... and then crossed my fingers hoping to hear something back before my dryer magically vanished forever from the dock.

Instead I hauled my gimpy 53 year old body and half-lame knee on-board, said a prayer, got seriously dangerous and grabbed with both hands.

And now I've got an actual clothes dryer on-board my boat.