Random

• Quotable: One of the great blessings of the postmodern world is that it has enabled us to move beyond this "head tripping" about faith and recover the importance of practice in forming disciples. It's not that congregations didn't engage in practices during modernity, for that's always been the way people have really learned the lessons of faith and life. Rather, because we were less than clear about the importance of practice and less aware of the practices we were actually engaged in, we sometimes didn't practice what we preached. ~ Jeffrey D. Jones, Practices in the Disciple-Forming Community

• Kenny, our house guest for a semester, does some maintenance work for one of the landlords in the community, but his work today was delayed a bit because the truck they normally use had been pulled-over and the driver cited by the Guam Police Department for failure to display a front license plate.

Wow, if they're finally cracking down on missing license plates 25% of the drivers on Guam are in trouble! The upside is that the fines collected might be able to erase all of the territory's debts within a few weeks!... Months?... Years?...

Okay, if they also tagged all the red light runners GovGuam would be out of the red -- if they could actually collect the fines.

• Keith Drury -- "You ask me how I know he lives?" -- plenty of good fodder in his post. Here's his outline:
1. PRE-MODERN: Of course he lives, we all know that!
2. MODERN: He lives because the evidence proves he lives.
3. ANTI-MODERN: He lives because he lives within my heart.
4. POST-MODERN: He lives because I believe he lives.

• Just when you thought things were getting simpler! -- A bargaining culture once confined largely to car showrooms and jewelry stores is taking root in major stores like Best Buy, Circuit City and Home Depot, as well as mom-and-pop operations.

Savvy consumers, empowered by the Internet and encouraged by a slowing economy, are finding that they can dicker on prices, not just on clearance items or big-ticket products like televisions but also on lower-cost goods like cameras, audio speakers, couches, rugs and even clothing. ~ NY Times