Mullings and Musings...

• "Gardening continued" (timely words for one searching and hoping for... hope...)

"What is one supposed to do when seeds are planted in faith, watered in love, anticipated with joy...and then,

a graveyard.

What is hope supposed to do?

With all the hope that is in me, right now, I'm begging for mercy.

Because a couple of those little seeds did make it. Tenacious, they clung to life..."

• "Growth by Theft ~ When Missions Hinders Missions" (thought provoking...)

"Some church planting is thrilling—with growth by new conversions. This usually happens intentionally, when we aim for the lost and non-churched (we usually get what we aim for).

Most church planting, however, is disappointing, with a seemingly intentional strategy of aiming for membership transplants by emphasizing internal programs over outreach, aquarium decor over fishing for men."

• "Character on Aisle Nine" (I hope, pray and strive to live this kind of example before my children...)

"A good way through our list, we saw her.

Bent over at the shoulder blades. Hair that shade of pinkish silver denial. Spotted hands on the crossbar of her shopping cart, pushing hard against it. Wrestling her way down the aisle in a losing battle against a wobbling stubborn wheel.

I passed by. But my mother? She stopped.

'Here,' she said,'take mine.'

She began lifting the woman’s groceries from her cart and placing them in ours. One after another. And, well, I couldn’t let me mom do all the work, could I? So there I was, nine years old, transferring a strangers toilet paper from one cart to another – and learning…

Compassion. Community. Service."

• "Too Much Praise is No Good for Toddlers" (So - what do you think? Agree or disagree?)

"Now, new research shows that too much praise for children as young as 1 to 3 can have negative repercussions down the road. (How did I spend my morning? Cheering on my 1-year old for the triangles she was putting into the triangle slots, and lauding my 3-year-old for clearing her plate.)

It was done by Carol Dweck, a Stanford researcher, who has been studying children’s coping and resilience mechanisms for 40 years. For the last 14 of them, she’s focused on what she suspects is the culprit behind less resilient children: Praise."

• "The Path Not Taken" (I'm intrigued - I know nothing about the author, but I'd like to investigate a bit further into what he's written. Can you help me along with that... please leave a comment!)

"...bailing out the banks while punishing workers is not, in fact, a recipe for prosperity. But was there any alternative? Well, that’s why I’m in Iceland, attending a conference about the country that did something different.

If you’ve been [following]... you know that Iceland was supposed to be the ultimate economic disaster story: its runaway bankers saddled the country with huge debts and seemed to leave the nation in a hopeless position.

But a funny thing happened...:  Iceland’s very desperation made conventional behavior impossible, freeing the nation to break the rules. Where everyone else bailed out the bankers and made the public pay the price, Iceland let the banks go bust and actually expanded its social safety net.... So how’s it going?..."