SPLATletts

Today in the SPLAT life -- in other words, random thoughts from SPLAT:

• Words to a song: Take my heart and form it; Take my mind, transform it; Take my will, confirm it to yours, to yours, o Lord.
• The Storyteller, Rev. Michael Williams, spoke today. He talked about the story of the Good Samaritan. Notice that it appears in Luke 10, right after Luke 9, when the Samaritans reject Jesus -- I've never noticed that before, but I think it is important.
• My favorite phrase from Rev. Williams -- "It's not a sweet story about someone helping someone else, but a story about the radical nature of God's love."
• Andy Lambert taught a workshop about Weird Stories in the Bible. Consider the story in Mark 5 about the healing of the man in the cemetery. Jesus sends the demons into a heard of pigs, who jump off a cliff. The nearby villagers are upset about the loss of the pigs, instead of celebrating the man's newly found freedom. It's a matter of priorities. If God works in our lives and fixes what we cannot, then some pigs are gonna die.
• Notice the altar in the image above. See the ladder in front of it. I've wondered all day about that ladder. I think it must be deliberate. Why would it be there? What does it represent? What is our ladder to the altar?

Images: Kathleen Baskin-Ball preaching on Saturday evening. Shadow images created by J and H. Middle image is a chain of glow in the dark bracelets.