I'm reading this book, "Stealing Jesus," and I extracted this quote from it. It was originally written by Houston Smith in a paper for The World Religions:

He invited them to see things differently, confident that if they did so their behavior would change accordingly. This called for working with people’s imaginations more than with their reason or their will. If listeners were to accept his invitation, the place to which they were being invited would have to seem real to them. So, because the reality his hearers were most familiar with consisted of concrete particulars, Jesus began with those particulars. He spoke of mustard seeds and rocky soil, of servants and masters, of weddings and wine. These specifics gave his teachings an opening ring of reality; he was speaking of things that were very much a part of his hearers’ worlds.

But having gotten them that far, having roused in them a momentum of assent, Jesus would then ride that momentum while giving its trajectory a startling, subversive twist. That phrase, “momentum of assent,” is important, for its deepest meaning is that Jesus located the authority for his teachings not in himself or in God-as-removed but in his hearers’ hearts. My teachings are true, he said in effect, not because they come from me, or even from God through me, but because (against all conventionality) your own hearts attest to their truth.

I love this passage, because I feel like we so often trivialize our faith into bumper sticker theologies and then invoke the name of Jesus to give what we say authority, when, in fact, the things that we say should have authority because they "are true...not because they come from me, or even from God through me, but because (against all conventionality) your own hearts attest to their truth."

This is a little off subject, and I will be posting our first grocery receipt later today, but I will be revisiting this topic a lot in the future. I am examining the ways that I understand my faith and the ways that I represent it, so close examination of language is essantial. But, hey, more on that later.

wow...

check out this article on our diets.

dialogues on sacrifice...

My wife and I have been having a lot of dialogue about the sacrifice part of simple and sacrificial living. I want to go beyond simplifying my life - I want to do it with purpose. I want to experience the closeness with God that comes from giving something up; sacrificing something so that others may benefit. I suggested that we give up red meat for a period of time, like the first week of every month. After a lengthy debate after breakfast (bacon, eggs, and french toast, by the way) Dawn suggested that We eat red meat only once a week for a month. I realized during our conversation that food is definitely something that we don't evaluate. It is not even something that my wife and I look at in our life. It is one of the things that our society is awkward addressing. Sure, we talk about the food pyramid and carbohydrates, but do we really evaluate our eating habits? Do we look at all the food in our grocery stores and wonder why there is so much available and so many people are hungry? Food, money, sex, and religion are all subjects that we skirt around and only look at the easy parts. That is alright for most of the world, but I claim to be trying to follow the teachings of Jesus and have a healthier relationship with God. So aren't I required to be more evaluative? Shouldn't I examine my actions and constantly adjust my lifestyle so that it comes that much closer to the one that Jesus led? I can make wrong decisions, I can fail at the attempts to improve, I can even turn my back on God and look with lust at the world, and God will wait patiently for me as I indulge my humanity. But I have done all of those things, and I know what my life looks like when indulgence is at the center. It is a life that denies my design and keeps me from experiencing the peace that is at the core of a relationship with God. And I want that peace. In order to achieve it, though, I have to commit to opening up these conversations, even if it means havign hard conversations about what we eat with my wife. So, in an effort to find a starting place, we will only be eating red meat on Fridays this month. this is essential in meeting our financial goal of a $120 grocery bill, and it provides some degree of intent to our experiment.

We will need to go to the store tomorrow, so my month will ofiicially begin there. I will be posting the receipt totals from my grocery trips and giving some examples of meals and snacks that we are trying in order to meet our new standard.