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Saturday, December 25, 2010

Water - A Christmas Gift

Here in south Pinellas County, Florida, we've been under a mandatory boil-water order for the last 36 hours.  That's a half-million people.  Seems a 4' diameter water main broke a few miles from our house. 

They're talking Sunday for an all-clear.

We're fixed better than most - the RV fresh-water tank gives us all we need.  But most people don't have that blessing, do they? 

This Christmas outage reminds me of something that Ecclesia church in Houston, among others, started doing a few years ago.  The statistic they quoted:  If we took the amount of money Americans spend on makeup and put it toward providing clean water sources, everyone in the world could have clean, safe water.  (Really?  Wow!)  The numbers on how many people die due to contaminated water are just insane.

So they gave water to the world instead of presents to each other.  Not 100%, I'm sure, but wow.  One between-the-lines Christian group that does this is called The Water Project, and the one Chris is Twittering on now is Living Water International.  Maybe the next time you want to make a difference...here's a beauty.

One little non-coincidental footnote: Pastor Chris Seay was previously a minister to students at Baylor, founded University Baptist Church in there in Waco, and mentored an introverted, awkward guy named David Crowder.  You think Chris is a leader?  And how.  Like the leader in Herbie's story.

Jackson Browne - The Rebel Jesus

I never heard this till this morning, which is really weird because I grew up with JB and the Eagles filling the radio.

Sometimes artists are our conscience.  Funny, how a guy who is professedly NOT a Christian (hey, he's honest...I just wish he would follow Jesus) calls it out so well.  As a friend of his said of him years ago, "Now Brother Jackson here says he's not a Christian..Yet!"  Merry Christmas.

All the streets are filled with laughter and light
And the music of the season
And the merchants' windows are all bright
With the faces of the children
And the families hurrying to their homes
While the sky darkens and freezes
Will be gathering around the hearths and tables
Giving thanks for God's graces
And the birth of the rebel Jesus

Well they call him by 'the Prince of Peace'
And they call him by 'the Savior'
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
And they fill his churches with their pride and gold
As their faith in him increases
But they've turned the nature that I worship in
From a temple to a robber's den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

Well we guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

Now pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgement
For I've no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and of earthly toil
There's a need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus