Random

> OVER THE past few weeks I've added six or seven new citrus trees to the backyard orchard -- another key lime, lisbon lemon, ruby red grapefruit, cara cara navel, Indio mandarinquat (which is already fruiting!), bearss lime, and a seedless kishu. I think we now have over 30 citrus trees. Don't worry, they're almost all on C-35 dwarf stock so they're small trees (full size fruit) -- bushes really -- and won't take over. I also planted a goji berry bush. In Phoenix if you don't get it in the ground now it won't have time to get established before the heat arrives in a few weeks.

> THE US has a higher obesity rate than Canada. See, another two things we do better than our Canadian cousins -- eat and loaf! ~ link

> MARK GALLI & DAVID NEFF give an overview of the hell debate. ISTM, that part of the problem with this issue is that it is so nuanced and not-so-linear that it can be cleany laid out on a single dimensional spectrum. ~ CT

> HERE IS HOW I'm inclined to approach the hell issue -- with this question: Which would be a worse hell -- God forcing his love on someone who rejects him or intentionally living apart from a God you loathe?

> "AFTER A LENGTHY review, federal officials concluded there are no breeding populations of (Eastern) cougars – also known as pumas, panthers, mountain lions and catamounts – in the eastern United States. Researchers believe the eastern cougar subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s." ~ Huff

> RUDY CARRASCO: "US-born English-dominant Latinos are being overlooked in the distribution of the church's attention & resources." No surprise, Rudy. You're not alone. Every group of second and third generation immigrants has had tension with those who still function out of the original cultural paradigm. ~ link

> REFLECTIONS ON six megathemes -- I certainly don't agree with all of the responses to the megathemes identified by Barna, but they're thoughtful fodder. ~ link

> ROBERT LOGAN'S new website Journey Together Now offers some great discipleship resources for those functioning out of a missional context. They're build around the three themes -- comunity, mission, communion.