NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

Read in the Babylon Bee [2019] U.S.-Bible scholars now claim the wise men didn’t deliver their gifts in person a few years late, as is commonly believed, but instead delivered presents directly to the Messiah using Amazon’s convenient one-day Prime shipping. “Instead of making the long, dangerous trek through the desert, the Magi simply hopped on Amazon and ordered gold, frankincense, and myrrh for one low price with free one-day shipping included,” said Dr. Brad Larson of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.  “There really was no sense in going all that way when Mary and Joseph already had a convenient Amazon Wishlist all set up for the newborn king.” Of course, scholars think the wise men committed the gift-giving sin of going “off-list”, ordering Jesus things they thought He would enjoy rather then sticking to the list. “We appreciate the gesture, of course,” Mary reportedly told a source. “But diapers and a Starbucks gift card would have been a lot more useful. The

“…  believing something to be true has nothing to do with whether it is true.” Marcus Borg (Convictions:How I Learned What matters Most) The story for today is a true story. Although if you remember this quote from Marcus Borg that I used last week,  that really doesn’t matter… The scene is in an ER waiting room in the downtown hospital in a large Canadian hospital.  It is just after midnight and the night is clear, but frosty and cold. A couple sat there through the night, waiting for their friends to reemerge from behind the sliding doors that they had gone into some time before. Here is their story as they told it to me. * * * * * * "As we sat there watching we could see the story playing out in front of us. We chatted for most of the evening with a woman who was well known to the staff, Her take on downtown life in the big city and her interactions with various hospitals was fascinating to us, the story of a unknown culture. She eventually got into a taxi to

Since human civilization first began, people have been telling stories. Sometimes these stories were based on fact, sometimes not. But what many of these stories had in common is that they were a vehicle to pass along knowledge or understanding to those who were listening, a way of teaching some of the great truths of existence. In the words of Marcus Borg (Convictions:How I Learned What matters Most) “…  believing something to be true has nothing to do with whether it is true.” And so for this Advent Season, I thought I would take a look a a few of these stories… Mr. Rogers once said “The world needs a sense of worth, and it will achieve it only by its people feeling that they are worthwhile.” I recently read about a experiment. Someone took 3 glass jars, placed them about a foot apart, placed an inch of plain rice in each one and then an inch of water. Every day, this person looked into the first jar and said kind and loving things to the rice and water like ‘I love you.’ a