dual personalities

Tag: Pilgrim’s Progress

October 10, 2023

Let no man take your crown

by chuckofish

I am traveling today to see darling daughter #2 and her sweet family, so I will be mostly off the internet for the rest of the week. Prayers for traveling mercies are much appreciated!

In the meantime, here are some good reads to keep you occupied.

This was fascinating about the humble chickadee.

Dear friends, we know that souls are not to be won by music. Heh heh.

10 things to know about the most famous blessing in the Bible.

The OM and I have joined a group at church that is reading The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. I have not read it in awhile, so I am really enjoying re-visiting it.

The Crown is before you, and it is an incorruptible one; so run that you may obtain it. Some there be that set out for this Crown, and after they have gone far for it, another comes in, and takes it from them; hold fast therefore that you have, let no man take your Crown; you are not yet out of reach of the gunshot of the Devil. You have not yet resisted unto death in your striving against sin. Let the Kingdom be always before you, and believe with certainty and consistency the things that are yet unseen. Let nothing that is on this side of eternal life get inside you. Above all, take care of your own hearts, and resist the lusts that tempt you, for your hearts are deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Set your faces like a flint; you have all the power of Heaven and earth on your side.

(Evangelist to Christian and Faithful)

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

(Numbers 6:24-16)

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December 11, 2018

Postcards from the holy land

by chuckofish

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Our pilgrimage tour was made up of 39 members of two Episcopal churches, my own in flyover country and one from Westchester County, New York. We were a fairly diverse group, ranging in age from Millennial to Over-the-Hill. We had five priests with us, two padres and three madres (from the Caribbean, Colombia and Australia), and a Lutheran pastor. The rest of the group included a retired detective from the NYPD (gangland division), two recently graduated Georgetown lacrosse players,

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In the Jordan River where we renewed our baptismal vows

an elderly WASP named “Bif,” a handful of former Catholics, a mother-daughter team from Jupiter, FL, and your run-of-the-mill Episcopalians like me.

We all got along remarkably well. Sure, the cool kids sat in the back of the tour bus and laughed it up, but I am old enough now that I could care less about such things. The good-humored lacrosse players served as sheepdogs and brought up the rear, making sure that no one wandered too far afield. We didn’t lose anyone and nobody fell (except our rector, twice).

We were up and at ’em at 6 a.m. every morning and saw more than I can ever fully digest.

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The street where our Christian hotel was located in the Old City near the Jaffa Gate.

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Two thousand year old olive trees in what “tradition tells us” is the Garden of Gethsemane

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The greatest model/visual aid ever (ancient Jerusalem)

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Our tour guide with his disciples

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Sun goddess in Jaffa on the Mediterranean

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Well, I don’t want to be accused, like Christian by Apollyon, that “when you talk of your journey and of what you have heard and seen, you inwardly desire your own glory in all you do and say,” so I will stop.

It was a great trip; I’m glad I went.

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